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History of Camp Verde: A Frontier Post of the U.S. Army

Published: 1952

Updated: December 1, 1994

Camp Verde, a United States Army frontier post, was established on July 8, 1855, on the northern bank of Verde Creek three miles outside of Bandera Pass in southern Kerr County. In 1856 the camp was headquarters for forty camels sent by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis to be used in a system of overland communications. Albert Sidney Johnston started from Camp Verde in 1857 on his expedition against the Mormons in Utah. The post was surrendered to the Confederate government in 1861, reoccupied by United States troops in 1865, and abandoned on April 1, 1869. In 1949 a few ruins of the camel corrals and officers' quarters remained. The Texas Centennial Commission placed a marker at the site near Camp Verde, Texas, in 1936.

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Bibliography:

Arrie Barrett, Federal Military Outposts in Texas, 1845–1861 (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1927). Chris Emmett, Texas Camel Tales (San Antonio: Naylor, 1932). J. Marvin Hunter, Old Camp Verde, The Home of the Camels (Bandera, Texas: Frontier Times, 1939). Harold Schoen, comp., Monuments Erected by the State of Texas to Commemorate the Centenary of Texas Independence (Austin: Commission of Control for Texas Centennial Celebrations, 1938).

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.

Anonymous, “Camp Verde,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed May 19, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/camp-verde.

TID: QBC29

Original Publication Date:
1952
Most Recent Revision Date:
December 1, 1994