Army Days

In the 1850's, a line of U.S. Calvary posts was built along the Southwest border region of the United States to guard the border and protect the transportation routes from hostile Indians. Fort Clark, built in 1852, in the nearby town of Brackettville, still stands. George Patton and Jonathan Wainwright served there. The fort was also used as the headquarters for MacKenzies's raiders, popularized by a television series in recent years. An outpost of Fort Clark was built along San Felipe Springs in 1857, near what is now Moore Park. It was named "Camp Del Rio" in 1881 and existed into the early part of the 20th Century.

During the late 1850's, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, attempting to find an animal more suited to the terrain than the horse, imported a number of camels from North Africa to Indianola, Texas. The U.S. Army Camel Corps did not last very long, but San Felipe Springs was designated as the official watering hole during the camels' westward move from Camp Verde in the Texas Hill Country. The springs also served as a watering stop on the San Antonio to San Diego Stagecoach Trail.