Fort Quitman

The Fort Quitman community was on Farm Road 192 some sixteen miles southwest of Sierra Blanca in southwestern Hudspeth County. It grew up around the military installation of the same name, which was established in 1858 to protect travelers on the San Antonio-El Paso Mail from the Mescalero Apaches. A local post office opened in 1868 with Veronica Stovall as postmistress and closed in 1876. The fort was permanently abandoned in the spring of 1881, after the death of the Mescalero chief Victorio. A second post office operated four miles south of the ruins of the fort from 1926 until either 1937 or the late 1940s. In 1940 the residents of Fort Quitman numbered less than twenty-five, and by the mid-1950s the town was no longer shown on maps of the area.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.