A simple stone marker bearing the words “Camp Rice” sits beside a field near this small cotton-farming community on the Rio Grande River. Across the river stands El Porvenir, Mexico and the Chihuahua Mountains on the horizon. It’s a rugged place that African-American troops of the 10th U.S. Cavalry knew all too well in the early 1880s. These so-called Buffalo Soldiers established a sub-post of Fort Davis on the Mexican border. The post was later renamed Fort Hancock in honor of Winfield Scott Hancock, a top Union general during the Civil War. The military way station along the El Paso to San Antonio road protected travelers from Indian attack. Rail lines reached the town of Fort Hancock by 1887, and the post was soon abandoned. The surviving community became an active cotton producing center with the development of improved cotton strains during the 1930s and 1940s. A “hotter” crop--piquant chile peppers of many types--has put the town on the map as home to Chipotle Texas-brand products, a top national producer of chile spices.