Fort Ringgold

Fort Ringgold, the southernmost installation of the western tier of forts constructed at the end of the Mexican War, stood guard for nearly a century over the Rio Grande and Rio Grande City. On October 26, 1848, Bvt. Maj. Joseph H. LaMotte led two companies of the First United States Infantry to Davis Landing, near the newly established Rio Grande City in Starr County. The army leased thirty-three acres from Henry Clay Davis, the town founder, whose heirs sold 350 acres to the government for $20,000 in 1878. Known initially as the Post at Davis Landing, the fort bore the names Camp Ringgold and Ringgold Barracks before being named Fort Ringgold in the year of the purchase. The name was in honor of Bvt. Maj. Samuel Ringgold, the first United States Army officer to die from wounds received in the battle of Palo Alto (May 8, 1846); he died on May 11. The military chose the site to protect the area from Indian and Mexican attacks.

The ninety-six-year occupancy of the post was marked by several interruptions, at times when the government considered it redundant, followed by regarrisoning when the region was threatened. Major periods of occupation were from 1848 until the Civil War intervened in 1861; from 1865 until military exigencies in the Philippines closed it in 1906; and from 1917 to 1944. The army declared the fort surplus and disposed of the property in 1944. The installation was of flimsy construction until after the Civil War. Construction began on a new post in 1869 at the same location, and by the mid-1870s it took on a permanent look with the erection of frame and brick structures along a palm-lined parade ground. Ringgold was one of the most attractive posts along the border. Congress appropriated additional funds for improvements in 1917. In the nineteenth century Ringgold hosted a number of prominent military figures, including Robert E. Lee, John J. Pershing, and possibly Jefferson Davis. In 1875 Capt. Leander H. McNelly and a contingent of Texas Rangers garrisoned the post.