Tom Mix

Future silent movie star Tom Mix (front, center) strikes a pose that hints at his later success as an on-screen cowboy hero. His fellow non-commissioned officers (NCOs) of Company 48 surround him on the front steps of Barracks Building 24

NPS Archives

Before Tom Mix became a star of silent pictures, he volunteered with the U.S. Army at the start of the Spanish-American War in 1898. As a private he served in Battery O, 4th U.S. Artillery Regiment, later redesignated as Company 48, Coast Artillery Corps. By the time Mix and his unit transferred from Delaware to Fort Hancock in 1899, Mix had vaulted up to 1st Sergeant--an unusually fast rise in rank.

Then, on October 20, 1902, he literally walked away from Fort Hancock without explanation, never to return. Several years after his desertion, Mix surfaced in Oklahoma where he became a rodeo star, and then went to Hollywood to be a stunt man in early silent movies. Ultimately he became one of the most popular cowboy movies stars of the 1920s and into the sound era, making 291 movies in 26 years. He never revealed why he walked away from Fort Hancock and what seemed to be a promising military career.