Fort McKavett

Fort McKavett is the fort Sherman called 'the prettiest post in Texas' — the limestone complex on the hill above the San Saba springs, built by the 8th Infantry in 1852 where the soldiers quarried their own stone and cut the pecan and oak for beams. The barracks they joined in 1872 became the longest military building west of the Mississippi; the commanding officer's quarters stood until it burned in 1941.

The post had three lives — established to protect the emigrant road, abandoned in 1859 when the reservations emptied the war out of it, reoccupied in 1868 when the Comanche raids resumed, and made the supply depot for the whole West Texas line until 1883. When the Army left for good, the settlers moved into the buildings and made the fort a town — the last residents didn't leave the old officers' quarters until 1973.

The state keeps it as the best-preserved Indian Wars post in Texas — the restored barracks and hospital and dead house, the ruins of the burned commander's quarters, the telegraph line the soldiers strung in 1875 still marked by the poles' original holes. The file keeps the prettiest post's completeness: the buildings that outlasted the garrison, the town that moved into them, and the limestone that made both possible.

Fort McKavett is the archive's limestone file — Sherman's 'prettiest post,' the longest barracks west of the Mississippi, the fort that became a town and the buildings the residents didn't leave until 1973.