Only Offutt survives from the dozen military posts once in Nebraska

That was the report given by Tom Buecker, who was the speaker at last week’s Graves Lecture Series hosted by the Reta King Library at Chadron State College. Buecker is curator of the Nebraska State Historical Society Museum at Fort Robinson. He holds a master’s degree from Chadron State.

Fort Robinson, now a state park, was one of the four military posts in the Panhandle and had a much longer tour of duty than most of the other Nebraska posts. It was opened in 1874 to protect the nearby Red Cloud Agency that supplied Indians with goods after their hunting grounds were taken. Once the world’s largest remount station, or facility where cavalry horses were processed, Fort Robinson survived as a military facility until 1948.

The other Panhandle posts were Camp Sheridan, located northeast of the present site of Chadron and operated from 1874 to 1881; Fort Sidney, which was operational from 1867 to 1894; and Fort Mitchell, which answered the roll call for less than three years in the mid-1860s.

Camp Sheridan’s role was similar to Fort Robinson’s initial assignment. It was to protect the Spotted Tail Agency where food and other items were available to the Lakota nation. Buecker said Camp Sheridan actually had three sites. The first was along White River near the South Dakota line. The next two were in the Beaver Valley area north of Hay Springs. There are still some “earth works” at the first location, but there are no signs of the last two camps, Buecker said.

Fort Mitchell, situated just north of Scotts Bluff along the North Platte River, was opened by troops at Fort Laramie in Wyoming to protect travelers on the Overland, or Oregon, Trail, but it never hosted more than 40 or 50 troops and was short-lived.

A native of Sidney, Buecker said the post in his hometown was started as a subpost from Fort Sedgwick, which was actually located in Colorado, but was operated as a Nebraska post. Like Forts Kearny, McPherson and Mitchell, Sedgwick was established as “a guardian of the trail,” Buecker said. Fort Sidney was established to protect the crews building the Union Pacific Railroad and then to help safeguard the trains after the tracks had been laid.

Although built of sod, Sedgwick became the quarters for from 800 to 900 soldiers, Buecker said. Fort Sidney had much sturdier structures and survived 27 years before it was abandoned.

There are remnants of three more early military posts in the western portion of the state, those attending the lecture series were told. A national military cemetery is now located at old Fort McPherson east of North Platte, there’s a state park where Fort Hartsuff between Ord and Burwell stood and the Niobrara Wildlife Refuge is situated north of Valentine where Fort Niobrara once operated.

It’s because the buildings at Fort Hartsuff are made of concrete that they are still standing, Buecker pointed out.