[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12101]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     23 IN 1--BRACKETTVILLE, TEXAS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Gallego) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Speaker, this morning, as I continue highlighting 
places in the 23rd District, which comprises nearly 24 percent of the 
land area of Texas, I would like to talk about the city of 
Brackettville. With a population of a little over 1,500 people, it is a 
small town with a big history.
  Located as the county seat in Kinney County, Brackettville was once 
the drive-in movie capital of Texas. It was founded in 1852 as Las 
Moras, the name of a nearby spring and creek it feeds. The town 
initially was a supply stop on the old San Antonio-El Paso Road and a 
supply depot for the U.S. Army's Fort Clark, which was also established 
in 1852.
  The town was later called Brackett, after Oscar B. Brackett, the 
owner of the first dry goods store in the area. It is a name that still 
sticks among locals. In 1873, when a post office opened in the town, 
the ``ville'' was added to ``Brackett'' in order to differentiate it 
from another town.
  The town grew exponentially in the 19th century with the expansion of 
the garrison at Fort Clark during the Indian wars. During that time, 
the town's fortune was completely tied to Fort Clark.

                              {time}  1015

  For many years, Fort Clark was the headquarters of the famous Buffalo 
Soldiers, made up of African Americans. At that time, Brackettville had 
a large proportion of Black Seminoles, who were people of mixed African 
American and Seminole ancestry, who originated in Florida. The Black 
Seminoles were recruited by the U.S. to act as scouts for the Buffalo 
Soldiers, and they settled with their families in Brackettville. During 
slavery years, the Black Seminoles began living in a settlement in 
northern Mexico in order to escape conditions in the U.S. Their 
language, Afro-Seminole Creole, was developed in Florida. Impressively, 
even today, Afro-Seminole Creole is still spoken by some in 
Brackettville. After the Buffalo Soldiers moved out to Fort Clark with 
the waning of the Indian Wars, Brackettville became a cavalry post.
  In 1914, the Seminole Negro Indian Scouts were finally disbanded, but 
these scouts had an amazing history of service. In fact, the Seminole 
cemetery near Brackettville has the highest number of Congressional 
Medal of Honor winners resting there per capita than has any other 
cemetery in the country. Virtually every cavalry unit in the U.S. Army 
was stationed at or was trained at Fort Clark at one time or another, 
and many famous soldiers, including John Pershing and George Patton, 
were there. Others just visited, people like George Armstrong Custer 
and Phil Sheridan, who nearly lost his life near Fort Clark to a 
Comanche war party. It was there that he made his famous statement: 
``If I owned Texas and hell, I would rent out Texas and live in hell.''
  In 1943, during World War II, the U.S. Army activated the 2nd 
Cavalry, which was the last horse-mounted unit. By 1944, even the 2nd 
Cavalry had been mechanized. Fort Clark, so long the center of mounted 
cavalry, was targeted for closure, but before it closed, it was used as 
a German prisoner of war camp.
  Because of the families of soldiers at the fort and the African 
American veterans and the descendants of those who had settled in 
Brackettville during the war, the U.S. Government funded the 
construction of a high school for Black students. The school opened in 
1944 so that the children of these veterans could be educated. At that 
time, Texas was still racially segregated. This high school is believed 
to have been the only federally built school of its kind between San 
Antonio and El Paso.
  After Fort Clark closed in 1946, it had a variety of uses. It was 
converted to a resort or a retirement center, and the Historic District 
of Fort Clark is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 
North of the town are the remains of the Alamo Village, built in the 
1950s as the set for John Wayne's movie ``The Alamo,'' and scenes of 
the 1969 comedy ``Viva Max!'' were also shot there.
  I invite everyone to visit the city of Brackettville to learn more 
about the cultures and traditions of the incredible 23rd District of 
Texas.

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