10/26/1849: Camp Gates established in Coryell County

[Craig Tx]

On this day in 1849, Camp Gates, the predecessor of Fort Gates, was established by Capt. William R. Montgomery as a stockaded United States cantonment on the north bank of the Leon River above Coryell Creek, about five miles east of the site of present Gatesville.

The installation was named for Bvt. Maj. Collinson Reed Gates of New York, who won distinction in the Mexican War. The last of a cordon of posts established in 1849 to protect settlers on the frontier from Indians, the fort was also the first of the line of posts to be abandoned. It was closed in March 1852, once the Indian threat had been removed. Lt. George Pickett, later a Confederate general and leader of "Pickett's Charge" at Gettysburg, was stationed at Fort Gates in 1850-51.