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Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025

Was Fort Bliss reactivated in response to the Salt War?

Sofia Sierra, El Paso Matters
yes

The military post in El Paso, Texas, was shut down in 1877 as a cost-cutting measure but was reactivated by the War Department a year later in response to the Salt War, records from the National Archives and Records Administration show.

The Salt War resulted from conflict arising over the San Elizario salt beds, dry saline lakes at the base of the Guadalupe Mountains. Violence erupted when Republican leaders tried to claim ownership of the land that citizens from both sides of the border had accessed freely during the 1860s, according to the Texas State Historical Association.

Fort Bliss was first established after the Mexican War in 1848 when U.S troops arrived in the area to protect the acquired land.

Within 45 years, Fort Bliss had five different locations until 1893 when it found its sixth, permanent home on the land of Lanoria Mesa, now Northeast El Paso.

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