Fort Sam Houston’s Quadrangle has had some notable visitors.
Geronimo, Pershing were at Fort Sam site
Long before there was a Pentagon in Washington, there was a Quadrangle at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.
The Army had a long but tenuous relationship with San Antonio as headquarters of the Department of Texas before the Quadrangle was built, occupying the Alamo (and adding the distinctive roofline) during the U.S.-Mexican War, then the Vance Building, where the Gunter Hotel now stands. Federal troops left during the Civil War. But after their return, the city became a major supply point for the Western forts and troops stationed along the border.
In 1870, Army Quartermaster General Brig. Gen. Montgomery Meigs asked Congress for “the erection of a fireproof building for the storage of military supplies (and as) a depot for troops on the Rio Grande frontier.”
For its part, the City Council voted to donate not only land north of the city but native limestone from the nearby city rock quarries (where the San Antonio Zoo and Sunken Gardens are now).
Construction began June 21, 1876, on the 749,000cubic-foot storage unit to be built around 8 acres of what became known as Government Hill. A second story was added to be used as headquarters office space. The structure originally had no name but acquired “The Quadrangle” through common usage.
Through the years, some notable military leaders worked there, including Gen. Frederick Funston, known for his commands during the Spanish-American War and in San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake; Gen. John J. Pershing, leader of the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I and of the Mexican Punitive Expedition going after Pancho Villa; and six other general officers who later served as commanding general of the Army or Army chief of staff.
Probably the most famous person associated with the Quadrangle was Geronimo, the Apache war chief confined there in 1886.
Captured with 32 other Apache warriors in Arizona, he was sent to Fort Sam while the federal government decided whether they were to be treated as prisoners of war or turned over to civil authorities. The Apaches — including the warriors’ women and children — were housed in Army tents along the Quadrangle’s north wall for about six weeks until they were moved to Florida.
It’s not true that the Quadrangle menagerie of deer, ducks, peacocks and other wildlife — a tourist attraction and family photograph staple while Fort Sam was an open post — was brought in for Geronimo and his band as “a more Native Americanfriendly food,” said John Manguso, former director of the Fort Sam Houston Museum and author of “The Quadrangle: Hub of Military Activity in San Antonio,” published in 2009 for the Historic Neighborhood Awareness Program.
The San Antonio Express reported in 1885 that deer had escaped from the Quadrangle’s small herd, and other news stories verify that the peacocks have been there since at least 1898. “There is no good reason why the animals are in the Quadrangle,” Fort Sam Museum Director Jackie Davis said, “except that having peacocks and tame deer was a popular thing to do in the 1800s.”
Geronimo didn’t jump from the clock tower, either.
It was originally built as a water tower, and its first Seth Thomas clock was installed in 1882 by Bell and Bros., a local jeweler, at first with faces only on the south and west sides. It was replaced in 1907 by another clock by the same manufacturer that worked for a century.
In 2007, Manguso said, “problems with the mechanism led to its being disconnected from the hands, and electric motors were installed to move them.” The 1907 mechanism is still in the tower, “as it would be a problem to move that mass of metal down the 103 steps around about 12 corners.”
Though its occupants and purposes have changed since it was completed in 1879, “the Quadrangle has been the home of a major Army command for its whole existence,” Davis said.