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LINCOLN COUNTY, NEW
MEXICO
Fort Stanton
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| At 17.2 m.
is the junction with a graded dirt road.
Left on this road 3 m. to FORT STANTON, now a United States Marine Hospital Reservation. It was established on the Bonito 2 miles south of this site in 1855 to restrain the Mescalero and White Mountain Apache, but was more of a stockade than a fort, with few buildings and little equipment. In 1861 the crude fortifications were destroyed by Confederate troops from Texas. Reoccupied by Union forces in 1863, it was rebuilt in 1868. Still later, when the site was moved here, substantial buildings were erected, most of which still stand, and are occupied by officers, attendants, and patients. The last of the soldiers left in 1896, and three years later it was turned over to the Public Health Service, and now is operated as a sanitarium. In the old days when the railroad was more than a hundred miles away, the fort depended to a large extent on food raised in the neighborhood, and all prices were high. Prairie hay sold at $50 per ton, corn at $2.50 per bushel, and other commodities in proportion. Source: Federal Writer's Project WPA, 1940 - Transcribed by C. Anthony |
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