The history of Fort Phantom Hill is an interesting saga of defense, a story of both political necessity and individual hubris, and a tale of human perseverance and shortsightedness. The story of the “Post on the Brazos River” has all the elements that characterize human activity with its triumphs and tragedies, victories and defeats.

As time passed, circumstances dictated changing uses for the structures at Fort Phantom Hill, from military outpost to stage station to hunter’s outpost. Eventually, opportunities for adaptation ran their course and the stone structures fell into neglect. The frontier was occupied by new immigrants who possessed a more modern technology. The threat of Indians was replaced by the hard daily work of living in a semi-desert environment.

In Fort Phantom Hill: The Mysterious Ruins on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River, Bill Wright weaves the threads of this story into the larger warp and weft of western history and shows how this small fort was conceived, lived, and died as an important part of the “winning of the West.”

Well-known American author and photographer Bill Wright has published five previous books, including Portraits from the Desert: Bill Wright’s Big Bend, People’s Lives: A Celebration of the Human Spirit, and the award-winning The Tiguas: Pueblo Indians of Texas. He has exhibited his award-winning photographs internationally and in the United States in hundreds of solo and group exhibitions. He is a member and former president of the Philosophical Society of Texas.