Fort Phantom Hill Fort Phantom Hill was an United States Army and Confederate Army installation located at the Clear Fork of the Brazos River in Taylor County , Texas . The fort was active from 1852 to 1853 and again from 1856 until the 1890s . The post was established on November 14 , 1851 and just a year later was transformed into a well - organized and thoroughly developed post . However , conditions continued to be difficult for people at the fort , and in November 1853 , approval was given for the military to abandon the fort . Shortly after the troops left , fire destroyed most of the log walls and thatch roofs of the buildings that made up this large and complex five - company post on the Texas Frontier . However , several stone buildings , stone chimneys , and the stone building foundations remain intact today . A watercolor portrait of the original fort shows Fort Phantom Hill as it was before the fire . In 1858 , the property was reoccupied as a way station on the Southern Overland Mail route and the Butterfield Stagecoach set up a stop at the abandoned fort . Fort Phantom Hill was used again during the Civil War by the Confederacy ' s Frontier Battalion , and in 1871 became a subpost of Fort Griffin ( near Albany , Texas ) and was used by troops engaged in Indian campaigns . After 1875 , a town grew up around the ruins of Fort Phantom Hill . The location functioned first as a buying and shipping point for buffalo hides and eventually as a town of more than 500 residents . Census records in 1880 show more than 545 people living at the fort , which had a hotel and the staples of most West Texas towns . Fort Phantom Hill also served briefly as the Jones County seat , although residents later moved it to the community of Anson . By the 1890s , Fort Phantom Hill was largely abandoned . Modern day visitors to Fort Phantom Hill can still get a feel for what life must have been like here in the 1850s as people tried to tame the unforgiving West Texas landscape . It seems the wisdom of General Persifor F . Smith ' s choice of this site for what was originally known as " The Post on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River " was disputed from the very beginning , especially by Major John Joseph Abercrombie . The major was a West Point graduate who commanded the Post on the Clear Fork from the time of its establishment on , until April 27 , 1852 , according to A History of Fort Phantom Hill , The Post on the Clear Fork of the Brazos River , Jones County , Texas ( prepared by Martha Doty Freeman in May 1999 for The Fort Phantom Foundation ) . Lieutenant Clinton Lear , the post ' s quartermaster , even went so far as to assert that he could not imagine " that God ever intended white man to occupy such a barren waste " as was found at Phantom Hill . The Fort Phantom Hill property has been owned by the family of Abilenian John Guitar since he purchased it in 1928 . Mr . Guitar ' s grandson , Jim Alexander of Abilene , purchased the property in 1969 . In 1997 , Mr . Alexander deeded the property to the Fort Phantom Foundation to help assure its long - term preservation and to make it more accessible to the public . Today Fort Phantom Hill is one of the most pristine historic sites in Texas . Besides the stone chimneys , other remnants of the developed fort remain for visitors to explore at the site . These include an intact stone powder magazine , a stone guardhouse , and an almost - intact commissary or warehouse . Fort Phantom Hill Lake . Fort Phantom Hill Lake ( ) is located on Elm Creek in Jones County , in north Abilene . Predominant Fish Species