Digs
Travel Channel Dig Wars A new television program entitled “Dig Wars” on the Travel Channel featured Fort Phantom Hill in an episode that aired nationwide for the first time on July 10, 2013. The “reality television” program featured three teams of experienced “artifact diggers” who searched different historic sites across the U.S., competing for bragging […]
Rendezvous
Fort Phantom Rendezvous, 1999 – 2003. Ray Boeshart (1920-2006) and his daughter Linda gave Rendezvous visitors free rides in their “Butterfield Stagecoach,” which is built to the specifications of an original Wells Fargo stagecoach. The vehicle is pulled by four quarter horses. A Living History Re-enactment of 1840-1875 The 2003 Rendezvous had 106 living historians, […]
Music Video Event
Saving Abel – “Mystify” According to KeyJ.com, Saving Abel is a platinum-selling southern rock band and they shot their latest video (summer 2013) in Abilene. As the video plays, you can see the chimney stacks and the mesquite trees that dot the landscape about the old fort site. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VcdQxhgIq8 Saving Abel – “Mystify” Saving Abel […]
Ghost Stories
Fort Phantom Hill Ghost Stories Ghost stories have been circulating about Fort Phantom Hill since its earliest existence in 1851. In 1938 (87 years after the fort was established), a lake was built south of the fort and was named “Lake Fort Phantom Hill.” Before that time, many had claimed sightings of supernatural beings, so […]
Marching Towards the Fort
Marching Towards the Fort The peacetime United States Army of 1851 consisted of eight regiments of infantry, four of artillery, two of dragoons, and one of mounted riflemen. Each infantry regiment had 10 companies. In November 1851, the left wing of the 5th Infantry – five companies (fully six percent of the entire United States […]
Fort in the Heart of Comancheria
By the early 1850’s, a line of established forts was too far removed to offer help to the settlers moving further west on the frontier, so a second cordon of forts was laid out to fill this advancing need. Fort Phantom Hill, along with three of its sister forts on the Texas Forts Trail (Ft. […]
Living Accommodations
Several officers, including Col. John J. Abercrombie, had brought their families with them to the fort. The soldiers’ first task was to set up canvas tents to house the officers and their wives. The tents were surrounded with fences made from brush. One letter said the soldiers spent their time “digging, chopping, sawing, hauling, and […]
Hard Times
The weather made life at Fort Phantom Hill even more difficult to endure. In the winter the severe “northers” blew in with freezing temperatures. The heat in the summer was often over 100 degrees F. There was never enough rain and often not enough grass to feed the horses and cattle at the Fort. There […]
Leaving the Fort
Changes Begin In 1853, life at the fort began to change. Company 1 of the Second Dragoon, under the command of Major Henry H. Sibley, took up quarters at the fort in September. A wagon was attacked by Comanche in the same month. Jane Wilson was taken captive, and the wagon driver was scalped and […]
Local Family Ties To The Fort
Local Family Ties To The Fort Abilenian siblings, Jackie Lanier Redwine and Mike V. Lanier, have deep roots to the fort. Their maternal great-great-grandfather, Thomas Fletcher Scott (1831-1913), was postmaster of the first post office in Jones County which was established at Phantom Hill on July 1, 1879. This was during the short time span […]
