Fort Davis, TX

November 27, 28, 2017

Fort Davis is a classic western Texas town with friendly people, the grocery store doubling as a sandwich shop and the drug store with its perfect 1950 soda fountain area with music to match.  The one Main Street in town was about 3 blocks long with no traffic.

The Limpia Hotel was our home for two days.  We shared a condo-like 2 bedroom suite with kitchen, dining room, and 2 baths.  Our bathroom had the old fashioned claw footed bath tub, meant for smaller folks back in the day.  In the morning we went to the drug store for breakfast.  It was Texas style: two eggs, 3 pancakes, hash browns, and bacon or saugage.  Mighty good!!

The town is named for the Fort that is located just outside of the town. Fort Davis is a United States National Historic Site. It was established in 1961 to protect one of the best remaining examples of United States Army Fort in the southwestern U.S.

The Fort was originally established in 1854 and has been slowly renovated with some of the buildings staged to show what life was like at the fort in the mid to late 1800’s.  The fort was designed “to protect emigrants, mail coaches and freight wagons on the trans-Pecos portion of the San Antonio-El Paso Road and the Chihuahua Trail, and to control activities on the southern stem of the Great Comanche War Trail.”

One important historical aspect of the fort was the activity of African Americans in the West and in the military. The 24th and 25th US Infantry regiments and the 9th and 10th Cavalry regiments, were all-black regiments known as the buffalo soldiers. Henry Ossian Flipper was an American soldier and former slave.  He was the first African American to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1877. He was the first nonwhite officer to lead buffalo soldiers of the 10th Cavalry.  He was met with constant racial injustices and was court martialed and dismissed from the US Army.  In 1994 his descendants demanded a review of his court martial and he, posthumously was  pardoned by President Bill Clinton in 1999.

Day 2
Libby had arranged a full day of activities at the McDonald Observatory about 30 minutes from Fort Davis.  She scheduled a 2 hour tour in the morning then a twilight lecture in the early evening followed by a Star Party at night.  What an incredible day!

The Observatory is part of the University of Texas at Austin, housing two incredible telescopes. The Harlan Smith Telescope is a 107” and the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, 360”.  Two magnificent pieces of equipment meant to observe the stars, and planets.  The Hobby-Eberly Telescope is designed specifically for spectroscopy, the separation of light into its various colors which is used to decode distant galaxies, exploding stars, black holes and uncovering the mystery of dark energy.

Astronomical Science is clearly way beyond my comprehension, however, just to see the magnificent structures was awe inspiring.  Astronomers from all over the world schedule time here at the observatory to collect data and search the night skies.

When we returned for the evening events, the wind had picked up dramatically and the skies were just a bit cloudy but the Star Party was still fabulous.  We walked around the observatory and got to look through four telescopes that had been set for us on specific sightings.  The moon was the most dramatic.  It appeared as a Waxing Gibbous form with the crater, Copernicus, clearly visible.  Another telescope showed twin stars, one blue and one yellow.  I can’t remember what they were called but the color was intense.  Although the weather was windy and cold at 4,000 ft, the experience of being at the top of the mountain and seeing what the naked eye could never see was amazing.