Fort Shiloh

It would be fair to say that the contrived "fort in the wilderness" theme was played well. (See below for source)

Fort Shiloh was one of the things that I wanted to cover on the blog, even its nascent years, as it was one of the things I remembered from my youth, even if it had closed in the mid-1990s, its large wooden road sign and wooden tipis out front a sign that something had been there in the past (regrettably, I don't have any pictures of either, though the picture on top is from Project HOLD). It is mentioned at The Eagle on this page (with demolition photos!) that the site was originally the clubhouse for the Shiloh Club, which I can find first reference to in 1932, referencing being newly built and two miles southeast of Texas A&M College on Highway 6 (that's Texas Avenue, at the time). In 1976, it moved to 1707 Palasota Drive¹ and in July 1977, Fort Shiloh Steakhouse opened at 2528 Texas Avenue South. The restaurant was to feature steaks, homemade ice cream, and waitstaff in "period costumes" where "you may be served by Daniel Boone or Calamity Jane"² and a Civil War cannon fired off at dinnertime (I'm guessing that didn't last too long). Back when this blog had a comments section on each page³, I did get this about Fort Shiloh:

Back in high school, I washed dishes at the Fort Shiloh Steakhouse. At the time, it was one of the more fancy local restaurants (filet mignon, anyone?). Sorry that a local landmark closes and is replaced by a dozen chain restaurants from Dallas/Houston.

Note that despite the fancy surroundings, it was a dry establishment even though the county was wet. The logo is basically a drawing of what the sign looked like.
In 1987 it was renamed as the "Fort Shiloh Grille" after a "merger" with another Ken Martin venture, The Fajita Grille, a short-lived restaurant at Post Oak Mall⁴ and would ultimately close around 1995 (some references say 1996). After about a decade, the site was cleared entirely and in late 2022/early 2023 work on Aggieland Express Car Wash & Lube finally started, ultimately opening around 2024. It had the same address. 1. I have no idea what happened to this. In 1995, there was the house that's there now (it doesn't look like it was anything else), and while Bridge Meadow Drive wasn't built yet, even by 1995 it was a defunct trailer park.
2. This was removed a while back as it was more trouble than it was worth.
3. Given that Ken Martin got his ideas from restaurant publications as stated in the preceding article, it sounds a lot like The Magic Time Machine restaurant, which opened in San Antonio in 1973.
4. While it isn't covered at the Post Oak Mall page at this site, it is covered at Carbon-izer.com.

UPDATE 10-04-2025: Full and total rewrite done incorporating updates. Replaced [1950s] with [2020s] and [1930s] due to new research.