Copperas Cove library brings Buffalo Soldiers history to life

Allen “Private Mack” Mack turned the Copperas Cove Public Library’s meeting room into a hands-on lesson in American military history, bringing soldier gear, historical artifacts and audience participation to a crowd of children and teens in Copperas Cove. The presentation was part of the library’s Summer Reading Program, which runs from mid-June into late July with weekly performers and special activities for ages 1 to 15.

The program’s setting mattered as much as the subject. The library sits at 501 South Main Street, next to the Central Fire Station, and the city says all Summer Reading Program events are free. In a town where the library’s 2026 kickoff drew more than 200 people, the Buffalo Soldiers presentation added another draw to a summer schedule that has become a reliable family stop in Coryell County.

Mack’s lesson centered on the Buffalo Soldiers, the Black frontier regiments created after Congress passed the Army Reorganization Act on July 28, 1866. The National Park Service says that law created six new Black regiments, including the 9th and 10th Cavalry and the 38th, 39th, 40th and 41st Infantry. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture says those six all-Black peacetime regiments were later consolidated into four.

The Texas State Historical Association says the nickname “Buffalo Soldiers” was given by Plains Indians to Black frontier regiments. TSHA says they served in Texas, the Southwest and the Great Plains from 1866 into the early 1890s, building roads, escorting mail parties, patrolling the frontier and taking on other difficult work while facing prejudice. The National Park Service also notes that Buffalo Soldiers served as some of the first rangers in the national parks.

Texas Parks and Wildlife has built its Buffalo Soldiers program around that history, using stories, costumes, tools, replica campsites, traditional games, sun navigation and Native American skills to make the past immediate for young audiences. A Texas Parks and Wildlife event listing shows attendees can join Pvt. Mack and the Buffalo Soldiers Heritage and Outreach Program at Cedar Hill State Park, part of a broader outreach effort that reaches beyond one library room.

Mack’s work also has a larger institutional reach. A Texas Historical Commission event page says he spent seven years with Texas Parks and Wildlife before stepping away to serve his community through the Living History Foundation, a Lexington-based nonprofit he founded to interpret the stories of people of color, women, people with disabilities and other marginalized groups. In Copperas Cove, that mission played out in real time, with a summer crowd meeting a chapter of military history that too often stays outside the classroom.