Fort Richardson State Park, Texas

April 2007 - Linda and I camped here for the first time.  We were impressed with the quality of the camp sites and how neat the park was.  We didn't have time to visit the historic fort site but we went back in 2009 and were treated to a private tour by a park ranger.

This camp site was very private and you can see from some of the pictures the rest of the park was not occupied.

There is a feeder creek from a spring that runs through this campsite.

The big creek is fed by Rumbling Spring and runs on the back side of our campsite.  Britni and I went for a walk and took some pic's of the trail and creek.

May 2009 - Linda and I camped at this park on the way to Durant, OK.

The hospital is the largest structure at the fort, then and now.  It was built at a cost of $150,000 in 1867.  The central part of the building is two story and includes the kitchen, dining area and doctor's office in the lower floor.  The upper floor served as living quarters for the hospital aids.  The single story wings on each side of the two story part of the building were the infirmaries where sick and injured soldiers were kept in hospital beds, one side for black soldiers and the other side for white soldiers.

The morgue was built behind the hospital and had a second room added to it that served as a bathroom for the fort's doctor.

The toilets had sand boxes that were emptied and cleaned by soldiers from the guard house.  The fort was built on a site that was solid rock so no latrines could be dug.

Theses two photos are of one of the infirmaries as they would have looked in the 1860's.

These photos show what the doctor's office would have looked like.

The typical enlisted man's uniform and gear.

A model of the fort showing all the buildings during the peak period of the fort.  The hospital is on the left, low ranking officers quarters are the lower buildings in the model, enlisted men's quarters are in the center and the stables are at the back.

This is the dining area in the hospital where the soldiers typical mean included beans and boiled or roasted beef.

The ranger that was our guide through the fort suggested Linda pose with the modeled food from the period.  Looks yummy, huh.

These are pictures of the kitchen in the hospital.  This room was also used for surgery because it had the best light.

The bakery.

These pictures are what is left of the guardhouse.  It had four cells and quarters for the guards.  The cells were four feet by eight feet and housed three prisoners each.  Our guide told us the guardhouse was always full.

A view of one of the cells.

The enlisted men's quarters were filled with bunk beds.  Each bed held two soldiers in the lower bed and two in the top bed.  They slept nose to toe.  The normal soldier bathed about once per month. 

This building was the commanding officer's home.  I have included views of the rooms and furnishings of the period.

Ranger Ray, our guide through the fort, said this flaw in the glass is the ghost that occupies the building.  Some people think it looks like an infant, others see it as a puppy.

This was our campsite at Fort Richardson.  The creek runs behind the brush at the back of the campsite and a small feeder creek from a nearby spring runs along the side of the campsite.