SAN ANGELO, TX - On this day, July 16, 1870, army officer John Porter Hatch began an experiment to manufacture and use adobe bricks as inexpensive construction material at Fort Concho, according to information from the Texas State Historical Association.
Hatch, born in New York in 1822, fought in the Mexican War and in the Civil War. As a major with the Fourth United States Cavalry, he ordered the commander of Fort Chadbourne, Capt. George C. Huntt, to move his unit to the site of Fort Concho in 1867.
The adobe experiment was judged a failure after Hatch and twenty enlisted men had produced only 10,000 usable bricks by September 2, 1870, but it did earn Hatch the nickname "Dobe," which he bore until his death in 1901.
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