Fort Bayard National Historic Landmark Introduction

Introduction

Text-to-speech Audio

Welcome to the Fort Bayard National Historic Landmark. For over 150 years, this site has played a significant role in the history of the American West. The first phase of its existence was as an active military post, stretching from 1866 to 1899. During that time, thousands of soldiers, Black, white, and even Native American, wore the uniform of the U.S. Army on these grounds. Their mission was to provide protection to settlers, miners, travelers, and peaceful Native groups in the region. Following the end of its service as an active military post, Fort Bayard became the home of the Army’s first hospital dedicated to the treatment of tuberculosis among its soldiers. As many as 1500 patients were under treatment at the hospital by 1918. It served in that capacity until 1920, when the facility was turned over to the U.S. Health Service. Two years later, Fort Bayard was assigned to the newly formed Veterans Bureau, and a state of the art hospital was constructed on the site, and named U.S. Veterans Hospital No. 55. In 1964 the Federal Government sold Fort Bayard to the State of New Mexico, and the State operated the hospital as a long term care facility until 2010, when the operation was moved to a new hospital building about a mile south of the original fort site. In the meantime, the Fort Bayard Historic Preservation Society had been formed, and led a successful effort to have the site declared a National Historic Landmark. That status was proclaimed by an act of Congress in 2004. All of the existing buildings on the more than 400 developed acres of land today, date from the years when Fort Bayard served as a hospital, the original fort buildings from the 19th century being gradually torn down over the years.

Images

Sally Port at Fort Bayard in the 1880s, looking south from the Parade Ground

Training Horses at Fort Bayard

Backstory and Context

Text-to-speech Audio

The Fort Years 1866-1899

The United States officially annexed much of the current state of New Mexico with the ratification of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1850. During the Mexican War in 1846, American forces under the command of General Stephen Watts Kearny had invaded and taken nominal control of the region. Kearny’s Army of the West passed through this part of New Mexico on its way to California in the autumn of 1846, taking note of the potential resources that would be conducive to mining, farming, ranching, and other commerce. Kearny also reported that bands of Apache Native sroamed undefeated in region, and that permanent military posts would be needed to provide security for any future settlers and entrepreneurs.

The first Army fort in the area was to be known as Fort Webster, and it was set up at the Santa Rita del Cobre copper mine, located just a few miles east of the future site of Fort Bayard, in 1851. Due to a lack of water, it was soon relocated a few miles farther east, along the Mimbres River. Several more short lived forts came and went until the Civil War ended in 1865. During those tumultuous years, gold had been discovered in the mountains a few miles north and west of the copper mine, and a mining camp known as Pinos Altos had been established. Native Apaches resented the intrusion of the white men, and their disruption to the wildlife, and the Apache way of life. Several violent encounters eventually led to an attempt by the Apaches, under the leadership of Mangas Coloradas and his son-in-law Cochise, to eradicate the Pinos Altos camp, in September of 1861. Though the attempt failed, the Apaches besieged the miners for almost a year afterward, until a force of California soldiers arrived in the summer of 1862. Several months later, the soldiers tricked Mangas Coloradas into appearing for a peace parley, captured him, then killed him at an abandoned military post twenty miles to the south, under treacherous circumstances. This ensured that warfare would intensify in the coming years.

It was clear that a permanent military post was needed, if the mineral wealth of southwestern New Mexico was to be exploited. In 1866, Company B of the 125th Colored Infantry marched over 300 miles from Fort Union in northwestern New Mexico, and officially established Fort Bayard on August 21st.