Just before 10 P.M. on January 9, 1879, the 130 Cheyennes held in the cavalry barracks made their desperate bid for freedom. After disabling the soldier guards, they fled across this ground to the White River beyond. Under heavy fire from pursuing troops, they followed the river and climbed the high buttes several miles to the west. During this initial fighting, twenty -seven Cheyennes and five soldiers were killed. The Cheyennes were buried in a mass grave near the post sawmill.
]]>In January 20, 1885, Congress granted the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad a right-of-way through the Fort Robinson Military Reservation. Later this line was acquired by the Chicago and North Western. With direct rail access in 1886, the fort continued to expand its regional importance, and its military use was assured well into the twentieth century. The railroad's arrival also spurred settlement with the founding of the town of Crawford in 1886.
]]>During the 1887 expansion of Fort Robinson 6 adobe barracks were built on the south side of the parade ground. Later 2 frame barracks were added. Each building had a dormitory area 170 by 30 feet, a kitchen wing 70 by 30 feet, and housed a single troop, usually 50 to 75 soldiers. Cavalry troops occupied this row until 1916. New brick construction in the twentieth century replaced 3 barracks. The 5 remaining barracks were demolished in 1923.
]]>This camp, constructed to house three thousand men, received the first German prisoners of war in June, 1943. Most of the soldiers were members of the Afrika Korps. The prisoners were allowed to work on farms and ranches in the area and received a wage guaranteed by the Geneva Convention. Their labor was boon to Nebraska's war-depleted agricultural work force. This camp closed in September, 1945, but some former prisoners found sponsors among their captors and returned to become U.S. citizens.
]]>Of the fifteen enlisted men's barracks of log, adobe, or fired brick, only this structure remains at Fort Robinson. It housed men of the 8th and 12th Cavalry and the Quartermaster Remount Service. A similar structure near the brick officers' homes at the west end of the parade ground was torn down after Fort Robinson was abandoned. In 1956 the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission adapted the building to lodging for visitors and provided for its preservation.
]]>This flagstaff, 105 feet high, is constructed of metal pipe with a ladder and crow's nest for buglers. It was originally on the other side of the 1905 headquarters near the highway, having replaced an earlier flagstaff blown down by an 1889 windstorm. In 1930, after runaway mules felled the flagpole, the commanding officer ordered it relocated here. Sergeant John Kailey, with the longest service record at the garrison, hoisted the flag for the first time, on Washington's birthday, 1876.
]]>Consisting of four double sets and one single occupancy dwelling for the post commander, these were the last officers' homes constructed at Fort Robinson. They represent the culmination of Victorian military architecture, with fancy fireplaces and bell systems to summon servants. After the military abandoned the fort in 1948, the quarters provided housing for employees of the USDA Beef Cattle Research Station, and have more recently been used as state park visitor accommodations by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.
]]>These duplex officers' quarters, of adobe brick construction, were completed in 1887 when Fort Robinson became a cavalry regimental headquarters. This structure has been restored by the Nebraska State Historical Society, and furnishings represent those of a typical Fort Robinson officer's home.
A post Commander's wife, Mrs. James Biddle, wrote the quarters were provided with running water, the first she had seen during her army life; and the social life was comparable to any large city such as Boston or Washington.
]]>The Post Headquarters was constructed in 1905. The Post Commander's office was located here, along with other administrative offices, post office, and the Fort's telephone exchange. An ornate auditorium on the second floor was often used for parties such as the masquerade ball held on January 2nd, 1906. During World War II this room was partitioned into additional administrative offices. The Nebraska State Historical Society opened the Fort Robinson Museum in June, 1956, as part of the effort to preserve Fort Robinson's heritage.
]]>Red Cloud Agency was established here in 1873 for Chief Red Cloud and his Ogalala band, as well as for other northern plains Indians, totaling nearly 13,000. Their earlier agency had been located on the North Platte near Fort Laramie. The agencies served as issuing points for supplies to the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho, authorized in exchange for land ceded to the U.S. in 1868. Dr. J. J. Saville, nominated by the Episcopal Church, was appointed the first agent.
A faction of Agency Indians, joined with visiting hostiles, harassed Saville and his thirty to forty employees, threatened cowboys, and rode through the unfinished stockade shooting out windows. After the establishment of nearby Camp Robinson in March 1874, the agency remained a powder keg. In October 1874, for example, hostiles chopped down the new agency flagpole and threatened to destroy both the agency and the military camp.
During the Indian war of 1876, the agency served as the center for non-hostiles. After the treaty ceding the Black Hills to the U.S. was signed here in 1876, and the death of Crazy Horse in 1877, the agency was relocated to the Pine Ridge Agency, Dakota Territory.
]]>In September 1875 a lone cottonwood provided a landmark where the Allison Commission met with thousands of Lakota Sioux in a futile effort to buy the Black Hills. Based on the recollections of elderly Lakotas, Captain Christopher Robinson Chapter, D.A.R., of Crawford, marked what was believed to be the historic tree in May 1932. The cottonwood, sometimes called "the treaty tree," died in the 1970s. It stood a few hundred feet south of this marker, looking toward Crow Butte.
]]>Crawford's first high school building was erected with locally fired brick in 1890 at an approximate cost of $25,000. This bell was installed in the belfry the following year. During the structure's demolition in 1956, citizens stealthily "requisitioned" the bell, fearing its loss. Brick salvaged from the school was used by the Lions Club in constructing this monument in 1979. The bell was placed here as a symbol of the town's commitment to education.
]]>The Chief of Fort Robinson Scouts, Baptiste "Little Bat" Garnier was shot by James Haguewood, bartender, in this building known as Dietrich's Saloon, December 16, 1900. "Little Bat" died near the center of the street intersection about 3 a.m. and was buried at the Fort Robinson cemetery. The record of death and interment states: "Deceased was brutally shot while wholly unarmed and without cause or justification." On a plea of "self-defense," Haguewood was acquitted. Garnier served his country well in bringing peace to the frontier.
]]>Crawford sprang up as a tent city on land owned by homesteader-newspaper correspondent William E. Annin in 1886 when the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad pushed through the Nebraska Panhandle. To incorporate the town, editor William Edgar supplemented civilian signatures with those of obliging soldiers stationed at nearby Fort Robinson. After the Burlington Railroad passed northward in 1887, Crawford became a supply depot and entertainment center for the Fort. Troops no longer man the "Outpost on the Plains," but the Fort, 3 miles to the west, remains as an important historic site and tourist attraction. Named for Army Captain Emmet Crawford, a Fort Robinson soldier, the city lies in the White River Valley in Pine Ridge country and serves an extensive cattle ranching and farming area. The Fort Laramie-Fort Pierre Fur Trail of the 1840s and the Sidney-Black Hills Trail active during the Black Hills gold rush of the 1870s both passed through this site. Crawford has been host or home to such personages as Sioux Chief Red Cloud; former desperado David (Doc) Middleton; poet-scout John Wallace Crawford; frontierswoman Calamity Jane; Army scout Baptiste (Little Bat) Garnier, shot down in a saloon; military surgeon Walter Reed, conqueror of Yellow fever; and President Theodore Roosevelt.
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]]>Perhaps no spot in Nebraska is so surrounded by historical and geographical landmarks as this one. Numerous landmarks of the period of the Indian Wars are visible from here. The site of a legendary battle between the Sioux and Crow Indians, Crow Butte, lies directly to the south. It was also a pioneer landmark for Indians, soldiers, and cattlemen. To the west are the Red Cloud Buttes. From these well known buttes, one may see the town of Crawford to the east, Fort Robinson to the south, and the site of the Red Cloud Agency to the southeast. The escarpment stretching north from the buttes was also a prominent early landmark. Approximately half a mile northwest of this point is the site of the Treaty Tree. There in September, 1875, while thousands of members of the Sioux Indian Nation looked on, the Allison Commission made an unsuccessful attempt to buy the Black Hills area from the Indians. It was not until after the bloody campaigns of 1876 that the Sioux Commission, headed by George Manypenny, succeeded in purchasing the area.
]]>America's longest horse race began here June 13, 1893. The 1,000 mile race ended June 27 in Chicago at Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. The race apparently was the idea of Chadron jokester John G. Maher. Seven of nine riders finished, some traveling up to ninety miles a day. Nebraska badman "Doc" Middleton was an entrant. John Berry won, riding Sandy and Poison, but was disqualified for having prior knowledge of the route. Chadron officials declared Joe Gillespie the winner.
]]>From about 1837 until 1850, more than a quarter million buffalo robes bought from Indians and 27 tons of fur company trade goods were hauled over the 300 mile long Fort Pierre-Fort Laramie Trail that followed the White River through this area. First used by the American Fur Company, the trail had its origin as part of an earlier Spanish trade route from Santa Fe to the Missouri River in present South Dakota. During the 1840s the Fort Pierre-Fort Laramie Trail was the shortest overland connection between trading posts on the Platte and steamboats plying the Missouri. After the government purchased Fort Laramie in 1849, Colonel Aeneas Mackay and Captain Stewart Van Vliet with ten mounted riflemen traveled the trail to Fort Pierre. General William S. Harney's troops marched over the route in 1855, and the trail was mapped by Lt. G. K. Warren of his staff. Small traders and government freighters continued to use portions of the trail until the 1880s. Ruts from the passage of thousands of carts and wagons can still be seen in several places between Fort Laramie and Fort Robinson.
]]>Shortly after the townsite of Chadron was selected on August 1, 1885, the Reverend Harmon Bross, a Congregational missionary, conducted the first worship service in the fledgling community. For a time services were held in the open air or in tents. On August 23, 1885, it was decided to organize a Congregational Church.
Chadron's first church was built on this site in the fall of 1885. The total cost of the building and lot was $1775. The Congregational Church of Chadron was dedicated on Sunday, December 20, 1885, and stood here until 1959 when the new church was completed. The original building still serves another denomination as a chapel.
The church's first regular minister was the Reverend G. J. Powell, who began his ministry in 1887. It was the Reverend Powell who led the effort to establish a Congregational academy in Chadron. The Chadron Academy operated from 1889-1910 when the land was acquired by the State of Nebraska for use as a normal school, today's Chadron State College.
]]>Employees of Lancaster P. Lupton built a trading post on the creek near here in 1841 to trade with the Sioux Indians. From 1842 until at least 1845 this post was managed by Louis B. Chartran, first for Sibille and Adams and later for Pratte & Cabanne.
These companies were successively headquartered at Fort Platte about eighty-five miles southwest of here and competed aggressively with Pierre Chouteau Jr. & Co., which owned Fort Laramie. As a result of this competition, fur traders were very active in this region during the 1840's, bringing liquor, blankets, guns, ammunition and other trade goods to exchange for fine Indian-tanned buffalo robes.
This creek is shown on the earlier maps of the area as "Chartran's Creek" in tribute to the trader Louis Chartran. The French settlers of Missouri Pronounced it "Shattron," and from this the modern name of "Chadron" evolved. Today this creek is Chadron Creek, and from the creek the city of Chadron received its name.
]]>Following the 1874 establishment of military posts near the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies for the Oglala and Brule Sioux, the army laid out a forty-two-mile road to transport military and Indian supplies between the agencies and posts. Oglala leader Crazy Horse traveled the road on his final journey, when an army officer and Indian scouts escorted him from Camp Sheridan to Camp (later Fort) Robinson on September 5, 1877. Crazy Horse was killed that night while resisting imprisonment and his father returned his body to Camp Sheridan the next day. After Red Cloud Agency was relocated to Dakota Territory in 1878 and renamed Pine Ridge Agency, the road was extended there. By 1881 a telegraph line paralleled the road. With the coming of settlers in the late 1870s, civilian stagecoaches and wagons traveled the road. The government continued to use it to deliver Indian agency supplies into the 1880s. Completion of the Fremont, Elkhorn, and Missouri Valley Railroad through northwestern Nebraska in 1885-86 relegated the road to local use.
]]>In September 1942 the Fort Robinson War Dog Training Center was established. Barracks, classrooms, administrative offices, and other support buildings were located west and north of here. To the east and north was a sprawling kennel area housing 1,800 dogs. The dogs were trained as guard, scout, messenger, and sled dogs. Training normally lasted 8 to 12 weeks. Nearly 5,000 dogs, half the number used by the Army in World War II, were trained here. The center was deactivated in June 1946.
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