Hooah! The Army celebrates its 250th birthday this year. On June 14, 1775, the Second Continental Congress authorized the establishment of the Continental Army, which later became the U.S. Army.
El Paso owes much of its success to the Army by way of Fort Bliss. The June 15, 1998, edition of the El Paso Times featured a special section dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the post. Following is an article on the very early days of Fort Bliss by Ken Flynn:
Post closed, moved often in early years
The soldiers of Fort Bliss Company D mounted their horses on that January day in 1859 and rode off in hot pursuit of an Apache raiding party that had stolen livestock from a San Elizario rancher.
The sun was hot and water was scarce, but the troopers doggedly followed the trail of the Apaches and the stolen animals. First southeast along the “old salt trail” to Tornillo, then north they rode until they reached Dog Canyon, south of present-day Alamogordo – a 165-mile campaign.
…The soldiers and the Apaches fought, three soldiers were killed and nine Apaches lost their lives. Stolen horses and mules were recovered, but the cattle were lost.
From its very beginning in 1848 as a frontier outpost, Fort Bliss has played the role of protector. First, the troops protected the settlers against Apache depredations.
Then the Army was called upon to protect the wagon trains of the forty-niners as they passed Franklin and Paso del Norte (El Paso and Ciudad Juarez) en route to the gold fields of California.
Soldiers were called on by the law-abiding citizens at the Pass to protect them from the rowdy cowboys, gunslingers and other criminal elements that had come to El Paso in the days of the wild west. The need to protect the U.S.-Mexico border brought expansion to Fort Bliss during the Mexican revolution.
Troops kept peace
The Army brought stability to the fledgling towns developing on the U.S. side of the border.
The first Fort Bliss was known as “the post opposite El Paso,” referring to Paso del Norte, present Ciudad Juarez.
Conditions in Franklin (El Paso) were so poor that Maj. Jefferson Van Horne, founder of Fort Bliss, housed units of his infantry regiment in the partial ruins of the Spanish presidio, or fort, at San Elizario.
Orders No. 58, issued Nov. 7, 1848, sent soldiers of the 3rd Regiment of Infantry to El Paso. They had no adequate map nor no road to follow. They blazed their own trail to Paso del Norte from San Antonio, a grueling trip of 673 miles that took three months.
When Van Horne called the new military installation “the post opposite El Paso,” Juarez boasted a population of several thousand. Only 200 people lived on the U.S. side of the river in the 1850s.
In 1851, the post was closed as part of a military downsizing.
The 81 soldiers in El Paso and 44 at San Elizario moved upstream about 40 miles to Fort Fillmore, near present Mesilla. Fillmore no longer exists.
Please come back
El Pasoans, suffering from Apache depredations, asked the Army to come back. In 1854, units of the Eighth Infantry, under the command of Lt. Col. Edmund B. Alexander, returned to the pass. This time, they settled in rented quarters at Magoffinsville, three miles east of Franklin (El Paso). The reestablished post was named for Lt. Col. William W.S. Bliss, a veteran of the Mexican War. Bliss, who had died the year before, never visited E Paso, but his remains are at Fort Bliss.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, the garrison received orders from San Antonio to surrender the post to Confederate commissioners. Confederate forces held Fort Bliss for a year. In 1862, Confederate troops abandoned Fort Bliss without a fight when a federal column advanced from California.
By 1865, Fort Bliss was in shambles. Fifth Infantry units arrived to re-establish the post, again at Magoffinsville. A stone marker at Magoffin Avenue and Willow Street in Central El Paso marks the site.
With the Civil War behind them, Fort Bliss officers had other things to worry about, mainly the Rio Grande. Floodwaters from the river seriously damaged the Magoffinsville post, washing away the corral and several buildings. In March, the fort was move to higher ground just south of Concordia Cemetery. For a brief period it was called Camp Condordia.
Shut down again
The post was closed once again, part of a military decision to cut funds. In January 1877, troops departed the Concordia post and El Paso was left without a garrison for more than a year.
Historians say El Paso needed the stability of a military post. Author Leon Metz describes the town as wild, perhaps one of the wildest in the West. Gamblers, gunslingers and prostitutes dominated El Paso, he said.
In 1878 Fort Bliss was re-established this time to restore order. The post was called “Garrison Town” and operations were conducted from rented buildings in Downtown El Paso.
The first steps toward making Fort Bliss a permanent post were taken in 1879 when the government acquired a total of 135 acres at Hart’s Mill (site of La Hacienda Restaurant) at a cost of $40,000.
In 1881, the first railroads arrived in El Paso, bringing more problems for the small military post. Tracks were laid right across the parade field at Hart’s Mill.
Things were looking up by 1886 with the surrender of Apache Chief Geronimo and the ed of Indian warfare in the Southwest.
By1893, Fort Bliss needed more room. El Paso was growing and becoming a vital transportation center with the confluence of five railroads, strategically located on the U.S.-Mexican border.
With support from Congress, Fort Bliss moved that year to its sixth and present location on Noria Mesa.
One of the most important deployments of those early years was the Punitive Expedition into Mexio in 1916 after Pancho Villa’s raid on Columbus, N.M. Although the troops never caught Villa, the expedition provided U.S. forces under Gen. John J. “Black Jack” Pershing with valuable training experience before World War I.
Fort Bliss has trained military personnel from more than 100 nations, not only in firing of missiles but in areas of military leadership and other related topics.
Since World War II, Fort Bliss has been in the forefront in the training of missiles and rockets. The fact Fort Bliss has the largest block of Department of Defense controlled airspace in the world is another factor that secures the post’s future.
“Whatever happens in the future regarding Fort Bliss will affect the city of El Paso,” Mayor Carlos Ramirez said. “Our futures are linked just like our past.”
Trish Long may be reached at tlong@elpasotimes.com.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Fort Bliss, established in 1848, played a crucial role in protecting settlers and travelers
Reporting by Trish Long, El Paso Times / El Paso Times
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
