Palisado Kitchen/Mess Room

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along just as it stands. Now, out at Fort Clark in Kinney County, there's a structure with a story that's been misread, mislabeled, and just plain misunderstood; so let's set the record straight. This building went up between 1869 and 1870, built by the U.S.

Army, and the hands that raised it belonged to African American Buffalo Soldiers of the 25th Infantry. These were men who knew their work. And what they built wasn't your typical frontier construction, because out here the trees simply weren't tall enough for the traditional horizontal log approach.

So they went vertical: post by post, a style known as jacal construction, and they put up a rectangular structure topped with a wood shingle roof to serve as a mess room, sitting right behind their new stone barracks. That's where the soldiers ate. That's what it was built to do.

Over time, the building changed its purpose the way a good tool finds new uses; it became a company storeroom, then a tailor shop, then an amusement hall. Different jobs, same four walls. Now here's the part that might make you shake your head a little.

Some sources took to calling this the Robert E. Lee building. Sounds distinguished, doesn't it?

One problem: Lee never visited Fort Clark while he was in Texas. Not once. So whatever else you want to say about this structure, you can't hang that name on it with any honesty.

The Buffalo Soldiers of the 25th Infantry built it. That's who deserves to stand behind this place.

What the marker says

This structure was built by the U. S. Army in 1869-70 and is an example of vertical post or jacal construction, used due to the absence of trees tall enough for traditional horizontal log construction. African American “Buffalo Soldiers” of the 25th infantry built the rectangular plan structure with wood shingle roof for use as a mess room located behind their new stone barracks. The building was later a company storeroom, tailor shop and amusement hall. Some sources mistakenly identified this building as the “Robert E. Lee building,” even though Lee never visited Fort Clark while he was in Texas. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1963