FORT GRANT :: THE EARLY DAYS Fort Grant, now a state prison, was United States Army fortification located on the southwestern slope of Mount Graham about 50 km from Willcox. The post was named for Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United States, Fort Grant was strategically placed so as to protect settlers who were constantly harassed by Apache warriors. It played a prominent role in the Apache Wars of the 1880s.

Henry McCarty, better known as "Billy the Kid", reportedly settled in the vicinity of Fort Grant in 1876, working as a ranch hand and tending sheep nearby. In 1877, McCarty killed a local blacksmith at a saloon and gambling house that is now called the Bonita Store, located a few miles from Fort Grant. McCarty was taken into custody at the Fort Grant stockade, but escaped to the New Mexico Territory before he could be tried.

Edgar Rice Burroughs was stationed at Fort Grant in 1896 as an enlisted man after not qualifying for the United States Military Academy at West Point. He was discharged in 1897 after being diagnosed with a heart condition that made him ineligible for a commission. The fort was repurposed in 1900 as a staging point for soldiers going to the Philippines to fight in the Philippine–American War. Fort Grant was abandoned by the Army in 1905.

In 1912, Arizona gained statehood, and the fort was occupied by the State Industrial School for Wayward Boys and Girls, which modernized most of the buildings. In 1968, the state of Arizona officially assigned the site to the Department of Corrections, and in 1973 Fort Grant became a state prison for male convicts. Fort Grant no longer has a visitor area or museum. Visitors are not allowed on prison property unless it is to visit an incarcerated inmate.

FORT GRANT TODAY
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Nestled in the shadows of Mount Graham, just two miles from the town of Bonita, sits the secluded community of Fort Grant. Those who live inside the gates of Fort Grant work, attend classes, participate in sports and can even join one of eight bands that regularly perform. What makes residents of Fort Grant unique is that every one of them is a convicted felon. Fort Grant is a unit of the Arizona State Prison Complex-Safford. Its residents are inmates.

Once an outpost for Apache scouts in the cavalry days of the early 1800s, the unit is full of history. Although most of the original buildings are gone, one remains. A building, once the Quartermaster's Storehouse and now called Brown's Folly is the oldest standing structure at the prison.