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Fort Bliss, El Paso County, Texas, USA



 


Notizen:
Wikipedia 2017:

Fort Bliss is a United States Army post in the U.S. states of New Mexico and Texas, with its headquarters located in El Paso, Texas. Named in honor of LTC William Bliss (1815-1853), a mathematical genius who was the son-in-law of President Zachary Taylor, Ft. Bliss has an area of about 1,700 square miles (4,400 km2); it is the largest installation in FORSCOM (United States Army Forces Command) and second-largest in the Army overall (the largest being the adjacent White Sands Missile Range). The portion of the post located in El Paso County, Texas, is a census-designated place with a population of 8,591 as of the time of the 2010 census. Fort Bliss provides the largest contiguous tract (1,500 sq mi or 3,900 km2) of restricted airspace in the Continental United States, used for missile and artillery training and testing, and at 992,000 acres boasts the largest maneuver area (ahead of the National Training Center, which has 642,000 acres).

Fort Bliss is home to the 1st Armored Division, which returned to US soil in 2011 after 40 years in Germany. The division is supported by the 15th Sustainment Brigade. The installation is also home to the 32nd Army Air & Missile Defense Command, the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, the 212th Fires Brigade (now reflagged as the 1st Armored Division Artillery Brigade), and the 402nd Field Artillery Brigade.

The headquarters for the El Paso Intelligence Center, a federal tactical operational intelligence center, is hosted at Fort Bliss. Its DoD (United States Department of Defense) counterpart, Joint Task Force North, is at Biggs Army Airfield. Biggs Field, a military airport located at Fort Bliss, is designated a military power projection platform.

Fort Bliss National Cemetery is located on the post. Other forts in the frontier fort system were Forts Griffin, Concho, Belknap, Chadbourne, Fort Stockton, Fort Davis, Richardson, McKavett, Clark, Fort McIntosh, Fort Inge and Phantom Hill in Texas, and Fort Sill in Oklahoma. There were "sub posts or intermediate stations" including Bothwick's Station on Salt Creek between Fort Richardson and Fort Belknap, Camp Wichita near Buffalo Springs between Fort Richardson and Red River Station, and Mountain Pass between Fort Concho and Fort Griffin.

History:

In 1846, Colonel Alexander Doniphan led 1st Regiment of Missouri mounted volunteers through El Paso del Norte, with victories at the Battle of El Brazito and the Battle of the Sacramento. Then on 7 November 1848, War Department General Order no. 58 ordered the establishment of a post across from El Paso del Norte (now Ciudad Juarez). On 8 September 1849, the garrison party of several companies of the 3rd U.S. Infantry ('The Old Guard', currently the oldest active duty regiment in the US Army), commanded by Major Jefferson Van Horne, found only four small and scattered settlements on the north side of the Rio Grande. The Post Opposite El Paso del Norte was first established at the site of Coon's Ranch (often erroneously referred to as Smith's Ranch, now downtown El Paso) and, along with Fort Selden and other Southwestern outposts, protected recently won territory from harassing Apaches and Comanches, provided law and order, and escorted the forty-niners. Van Horne also had nominal command of the Post at San Elizario, the former Presidio of San Elizario, seventeen miles downstream from El Paso del Norte. With constant Indian raids, garrisons had to be moved frequently to meet the shifting threats. In September 1851, the Post Opposite El Paso and the Post at San Elizario were closed, the soldiers moved 40 miles (64 km) north to Fort Fillmore.

On 11 January 1854, Companies B, E, I and K of the 8th Infantry, under the command of Lt. Col. Edmund B. Alexander, established Post of El Paso at Magoffinsville under orders from Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. The post became Fort Bliss on 8 March 1854 in honor of Lt. Col. William Wallace Smith Bliss, a veteran of the Mexican War (1846-1848) who was cited for gallantry in action.

There it remained for the next 14 years, serving as a base for troops guarding the area against Apache attacks. Until 1861 most of these troops were units of the 8th Infantry Brigade. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, the Commander of the Department of Texas ordered the garrison to surrender Fort Bliss to the Confederacy, which Col. Isaac Van Duzen Reeve did on 31 March 1861. Confederate forces consisting of the 2nd Regiment of Texas, under the command of Col. John R. Baylor, took the post on 1 July 1861, and used the post as a platform to launch attacks into New Mexico and Arizona in an effort to force the Union garrisons still in these states to surrender. Initially the Confederate Army had success in their attempts to gain control of New Mexico, but following the Battle of Glorieta Pass Confederate soldiers were forced to retreat. The Confederate garrison abandoned Fort Bliss without a fight the next year when a Federal column of 2,350 men under the command of Colonel James H. Carleton advanced from California. The Californians maintained an irregular garrison at Fort Bliss until 1865 when 5th Infantry units arrived to reestablish the post, who were subsequently relieved by the 25th Infantry, Buffalo Soldiers, on 12 August 1866, followed by the 35th Infantry two months later.

After May 1867 Rio Grande flooding seriously damaged the Magoffinsville post, Fort Bliss was moved to a site called Camp Concordia in March 1868. Camp Concordia's location was immediately south of what is now Interstate 10, across from Concordia Cemetery in El Paso. The Rio Grande was about a mile south of the camp at that time; water was hauled daily by mule team to the camp. On 11 March 1869 the old name of Fort Bliss was resumed. Water, heating, and sanitation facilities were at a minimum in the adobe buildings of the fort; records reveal that troops suffered severely from dysentery and malaria and that supplies arrived irregularly over the Santa Fe Trail by wagon train. The Concordia post was abandoned in January 1877, and after troops left in January, El Paso was without a garrison for more than a year. By that time, the town and its environs on the north side of the river had swelled to a population of almost 800.

On New Year's Day,1878, Fort Bliss was established as a permanent post; the Company L Buffalo Soldiers of the Ninth Cavalry and Company C of the 15th Infantry, were sent to Fort Bliss to prevent further trouble over the salt beds and the usage of Rio Grande water for irrigation purposes. Prior to this date, the government had had a policy of simply leasing property for its military installations. Now, however, a tract of 135 acres (0.55 km2) was purchased at Hart's Mill on the river's edge in the Pass, near what is today the UTEP. With a $40,000 appropriation, a building program was begun. The first railroad arrived in 1881, and tracks were laid across the military reservation, thereby solving the supply problems for the fort and the rapidly growing town of El Paso. By 1890, Hart's Mill had outlived its usefulness, and Congress appropriated $150,000 for construction of a military installation on the mesa approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) east of El Paso's 1890 city limits. Although no money was appropriated for the land, $8,250 was easily raised by the local residents, who realized the economic benefit to the area.

Ort : Geographische Breite: 31.812438, Geographische Länge: -106.42132079999999


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1 Nusz / Lehr  19 Aug 1951Fort Bliss, El Paso County, Texas, USA F56823