Officers Quarters 2-3 and 4

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm just the one doing the talkin'. Now, out here in Kinney County, there are two buildings that have been standin' since 1854 and 1855, and what they've seen, friend, would fill more than a few campfire nights. They went up soon after the U.S.

Army established Fort Clark. Back then, the antebellum fort was a whole world unto itself: officers quarters, barracks for enlisted men, a two-story quartermaster storehouse, a powder magazine, a hospital, a guardhouse, and a post headquarters, all arranged around a parade ground. You can almost hear the boots on that dirt if you listen right.

Now here's where it gets interesting. During that period, these very quarters likely housed some names that history never forgot. John Bell Hood.

J.E.B. Stuart. Fitzhugh Lee.

James Longstreet. Men who would go on to leave their marks (indelibly) on the story of this country. And here they were, in these two buildings, livin' out ordinary days that none of them could've known were prelude to extraordinary ones.

The buildings themselves are something to study on. Horizontal logs and vertical posts, notched and interlocked; a kind of craftsmanship that held, and held, and kept on holdin'. The limestone chimneys standing alongside them are historic too.

These weren't thrown up in a hurry. They were built to last. And last they did.

The Army closed Fort Clark in 1944, nearly a full century after these walls first went up. By that time, the buildings had been clad in lath and plaster and wood siding, wearing new coats over old bones, the way old things sometimes do when the world keeps movin' around them. Two buildings.

Ninety years of army life. And names carved into American history who once likely called this place home. Some stories, you don't need to embellish.

You just need to stand still long enough to hear them.

What the marker says

These two buildings date from 1854-55, soon after the U.S. Army established Fort Clark. The antebellum fort then included officers quarters and barracks for enlisted men, as well as a two-story quartermaster storehouse, powder magazine, hospital, guardhouse and post headquarters around a parade ground. During this period, such notable army officers as John Bell Hood, J.E.B. Stuart, Fitzhugh Lee and James Longstreet served here and likely lived in these quarters. Horizontal logs and vertical posts were notched and interlocked to create these buildings. Limestone chimneys are also historic. The army closed the fort in 1944, by which time the buildings were clad in lath and plaster and wood siding. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2007