Oklahoma (admitted to the Union on November 16, 1907)
As Wikipedia's "Oklahoma" article explains, during the 1800s, "the U. S. federal government forcibly removed tens of thousands of American Indians from their ancestral homelands from across North America and transported them to the area including and surrounding present-day Oklahoma." Included among these tribes were 17,000 "thousand Cherokees and 2,000 of their black slaves." From 1834 until 1890, this area was known as the Indian Territory; from 1890 to November 16, 1907, when it became a U. S. state, it was known as Oklahoma Territory.
During the U. S. Civil War, the Indian Territory. Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee [Creek], and Seminole) sided with the Confederacy; slavery was not abolished in Oklahoma until1865. The demand for cattle led to the development of five cattle trails, four of which ran through Indian Territory and eventually to the Dawes Act that "abolished tribal governments and transferred most land ownership to the U. S. Much of this land was sold to settlers and railroads, leading to the Land Rush of 1889 and others who claimed 160 acres under the Homestead Act of 1862.
Mostly, the need to protect settlers and cattle trails to the construction of U. S. Army posts. The Civil War also prompted the use of such forts, sometimes by Union troops, sometimes by Confederate soldiers, the latter especially in Oklahoma Territory.
Fort Gibson (1824)
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Fort Gibson Barracks
Fort Gibson, built in 1824, on the Grand River, near its confluence with the Arkansas River, was one of several in a "chain" of forts that protected the American frontier and much of the rest of the Louisiana Purchase and settled disputes among local tribes. Later, it assisted in managing Native Americans forcibly removed from eastern states. During the early 1830s, its soldiers also helped to build roads.
Among those stationed at he fort at one time or another were Stephen W. Kearny, Robert E. Lee, and Zachary Taylor.
During the Civil War, Union troops were stationed there, and, in 1872, the fort's soldiers began to "police" laborers who'd moved to the area to build the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad from the Baxter Springs, Kansas, cow town to the Red River Crossing at Colbert's Ferry in Indian Territory.
Fort Gibson Historic Area: released into the public domain by its photographer.
In 1888, Kansas and Arkansas Valley Railway was constructed in the area, leading to the development of the town of Fort Gibson, Oklahoma. Soon thereafter, the fort was abandoned ("Fort Gibson," Wikipedia).
Fort Towson (1824)
As "10 Historic Forts in Oklahoma," Historic Forts, points out, Fort Towson, established in1824, near the Red River, in southwestern Oklahoma, had much the same mission as Fort Gibson, to protect settlers and "maintain peace between various Native American tribes." During the Civil War, though, it functioned as a home base for Confederate troops until it became the site at which "the surrender of the last Confederate land forces [took place] in 1865."
Fort Washita (1824)
Fort Washita, established in 1824, along the Red River, has a history that is also similar to those of Fort Gibson and Fort Towson, having served a "role in the forced relocation of American Indians and its occupation by Confederate forces" and later having been occupied by Confederate soldiers during the Civil War "10 Historic Forts in Oklahoma."
Fort Sill (1869)
Another relic of the Indian Wars (1609-1890), Camp Wichita (later Fort Sill) was "staked out" by Major General Philip Sheridan on January 8, 1869, who halted Native American raids against Texas and Kansas settlements during which Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, Ben Clark and Jack Stilwell served as scouts employed by the U. S. Army. (To Native Americans, the fort was known as "The Soldier House at Medicine Bluffs."
During an 1871 visit to the fort, General of the Army William Tecumseh Sherman, after hearing Kiowa chiefs' account of their attack on a wag on train, in which muleskinners were killed, ordered them arrested, at which point "two of the Indians attempted to assassinate him." Three chiefs, Satank, Satanta and Addo-ete, were arrested, tried, and sentenced to be hanged.
In transit to Fort Richardson, located in Texas, Satank disarmed a soldier, but Satank was killed when he sought to cock and fire the rifle he'd seized. The other two chief's death sentences were later commuted to life in prison by Texas Governor Edmund J. Davis.
During the Red River War (1874) between the U. S. and the Comanches, Kiowas, and Southern Cheyennes, defeated tribal members were sent to For Sill to enter the "reservation system."
Another famous name associated with the fort is that of the Chiricahua Apache Geronimo:
In 1894, Geronimo and 341 other Chiricahua Apache prisoners of war were brought to Fort Sill, where they lived in villages scattered around the post. After a couple of years, Geronimo was granted permission to travel with Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show, and he joined the Indian contingent at several annual World Expositions and Indian Expositions in the 1890s and early 1900s. Geronimo and other Indian leaders rode in the inaugural parade of President Theodore Roosevelt and met the president himself during that trip. Geronimo and the other Apache prisoners had free range of Fort Sill. He was a member of Fort Sill's Native Scouts. Still, he did make at least one documented attempt to escape from the fort, though not in the dramatic fashion of jumping off the steep Medicine Bluffs on his horse in a hail of bullets as popularized in the 1939 movie, Geronimo. . . .
The 10th Cavalry Regiment, "the famous Buffalo Soldiers," was also stationed at Fort Sill, as Troop L of the 7th Cavalry, an all-Native American unit "considered one of the best in the West."
The fort continues to operate today as the the home of the U. S. Field Artillery School ("Fort Sill," Wikipedia).
Fort Reno (1874)
Fort Reno, Oklahoma, 1891
Commissioned in 1874, "the same year that George Custer’s expedition confirmed reports of gold in the Black Hills," Fort Reno, in Indian Territory, supported the territory's "transition to . . . the State of Oklahoma," which involved the forcible removal of Native Americans. The U. S. Army"issued an ultimatum to the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne bands to relocate onto reservations by January 31, 1876, [attacking] those who resisted."
The fort also supervised and controlled land rushes, and expelled "Eastern opportunists began trying to claim and settle the area surrounding Fort Reno."
One of the relatively few forts to survive the 19th century:
In 1908, the fort shifted from a station for troops to a remount station raising horses and mules for army use, a function it served for nearly four decades. During World War II, Fort Reno continued to foster large-scale movements of people in support of the United States war effort. As defense-related traffic hummed along on adjacent Route 66, stimulating economies adjacent to military bases, nearly 100 acres of Fort Reno’s eastern portion became an internment camp for German prisoners of war.
Even after it was closed in1947, it continued to serve the nation's needs, hosting "the Department of Agriculture's Grazinglands Research Laboratory," a mission that continues to this day ("Oklahoma: Fort Reno," National Park Service).
Fort Supply (1868)
Established in 1868 so that is soldiers could participate in "the winter campaign against the Plains Indians," Camp Supply fulfilled this function for 25 years as its troops both sought to "contain the tribal nations and keep out trespassers, [including] buffalo hunters, timber and horse thieves, whiskey traders, and boomers." In addition, soldiers "escorted cattle drives and protected stage coaches, freight haulers, and travelers" until its closure in 1894" ("Fort Supply Historic Site," Oklahoma Historical Society).
Fort Arbuckle (1851)
Established in 1851, Fort Arbuckle's mission was to suppress and protect against Plains Indians' raids on Oklahoma and Texas settlers and their attacks against Southwestern tribes that had relocated to the eastern part of the Indian Territory. The fort was built on Wildhorse Creek, a branch of the Washita River, in the Territory's Chickasaw Nation, "to the north and west of Fort Washita." Initially, "a rectangular fort with barracks on opposite sides and quartermaster and commissary facilities on opposite ends," the fort would later contain "thirty hewn-log buildings with stone chimneys."
However, "when Maj. William H. Emory of the First Cavalry arrived in 1858 as commander of Forts Arbuckle and Washita, he found his headquarters post in a poor state, [reporting] that many buildings were dilapidated, his troops lacked proper clothing, and ordinance stores were almost nonexistent. Surplus ammunition and powder had to be buried to be protected from the weather."
Instead of improving the fort, he was ordered to build another, Fort Cobb, farther northwest, "to protect Texas tribes then being relocated to the Leased District in western Indian Territory." During the first year of the Civil War, Confederate troops occupied the fort after it was evacuated . After the war, the fort stored hay and corn for General Philip Sheridan's 1868 winter campaign against the Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Comanche tribes.
The post was abandoned in the spring of 1870, following the establishment of Fort Sill ("Fort Arbuckle," The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture).
Fort McCulloch (1862)
Once the Confederate army's "main . . . fortification," Fort McCullough was built, in 1862, "on a bluff on the south bank of the Blue River" in southern Indian Territory, "along routes leading to Forts Gibson and Washita."
Believing that his headquarters at Fort Davis in Cherokee Territory could be seized by Union troops, following the Confederate defeat at Pea Ridge, Arkansas in May 1862, Confederate Brigadier General Albert Pike abandoned it, moving his troops to a location near Blue River.
After Pike resigned in July, the fort, consisting "of earthworks and no permanent buildings," became less important; it was abandoned as a military post when the war ended, although, afterward, it served as "a haven for refugees and briefly in 1865 as Gen. Stand Watie's seat of command." ("Fort McCulloch," The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture)
Fort Coffee (1834)
"Built [in 1834] on a bluff on the south bank of the Arkansas River at a place known as Swallow Rock," F ort Coffee's mission was twofold: it protected the Choctaw and preventing liquor from being brought into Indian Territory from Arkansas. Later, it protected Arkansas's western boundary and "served as an arms depot for the [state] militia."
John D. May describes it as having been "poorly constructed, . . . its log buildings enclosed three sides of a small square, with the fourth side open toward the Arkansas River." When Fort Wayne was built on the Illinois River in 1838, Fort Coffee was abandoned.
However, the Choctaw Nation, acquiring the property, permitted "Methodist ministers to the facility as the Fort Coffee Academy for boys," a function it served until Confederate troops occupied it during the Civil War, and Union soldiers, capturing the post burned it in 1863. ("Fort Coffee," The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture)
Camp Nichols (1865)
Constructed un 1865 by U. S. Army soldiers under the command of Colonel Christopher "Kit" Carson, Camp Nichols was situated halfway between Fort Union, New Mexico, and Fort Dodge, Kansas, its purpose to protect travelers on the Santa Fe Trail's Cimarron Route.
A large fort (40,000 square feet), it was well-protected inside stone walls. Although the fort's commissary and hospital were also built of stone, "troops were quartered in dugouts and tents," and "officers' quarters were located outside the protective walls," despite the presence of their wives. ("Fort Nichols," The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma's History and Culture).
A historic marker adds a few additional details of the post's history:
[Fort Nichols was] established in May, 1865, by Kit Carson, hero of Valverde and Brig. Gen., New Mexico volunteers, to guard Santa Fe Trail and furnish escorts for caravans in Santa Fe trade. Santa Fe Trail . . . was first traveled by William Becknell's expedition from Missouri in 1823 ("Camp Nichols," Wikipedia).
As Jon D. May points out, "Never officially a 'fort' as it is sometimes called, Camp Nichols was abandoned in November 1865" ("Fort Nichols," The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma, "History and Culture).
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