Southern Arizona Military Outposts (Images of America)

In the 1840s, the powerful pull of Manifest Destiny brought the U.S. Army to today’s southern Arizona. The first forces came as a vanguard marching westward to conquer California, but soon their comrades returned. They would establish a string of outposts, a few of which remain more than a century after their founding. These installations greatly contributed to local military, economic, social, and even political history. Their inhabitants included noted 19th-century generals George Crook and Nelson A. Miles, as well as a later officer, Omar Bradley of World War II fame. Some of these men brought their families to share the often lonely, monotonous existence of life at a frontier fort. Occasionally their routine was broken by grueling field service that more than once sent troops southward on to Mexican soil where they suffered and sometimes died. Among these stalwarts were buffalo soldiers, Indian scouts, and new arrivals fresh from Europe.