05/22/2023
Built in 1855 by soldiers of the 1st Dragoon and the 3rd and 8th Infantry Regiments, Fort Stanton, NM served as a military base and reservation for the Mescalero Apache tribe. Constructed from local stone, many of the sturdy 1855 buildings have been modified but remain standing to this day. The Fort was named after Captain Henry W. Stanton, who was killed in a skirmish with the Apache tribe in 1855 near present-day Mayhill, NM. Fort Stanton was decommissioned in 1896 and abandoned for three years until the Marine Hospital Service occupied the grounds in 1899 as the nation's first federally-run tuberculosis hospital. Since then, it has been used as a Civilian Conservation Corp camp, German internment camp during WW2, a mental hospital, and a corrections facility. Today it is one of New Mexico’s historic sites located to the southwest of Lincoln, NM.
