The fort served as a base for United States Army troops assigned to protect the southern overland mail route along the San Antonio-El Paso Road from Indian raids.

The army recovered materials from the site to use for additions to nearby Fort Clark.

The fort was surrounded on three sides by a stacked stone wall added around the time of the Civil War.

Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte II was posted to Fort Inge in the early 1850s, and his letters from there are preserved by the Maryland Historical Society.

[5] The site is located on the Leona River, and is dominated by the 140-ft-high (43 m) remains of an extinct volcano named Mount Inge.