[Adapted from Sentinel to the Cimarron by Dr. David Kay Strate]
In the beginning, there was Fort Dodge. This military post not only provided Dodge City with its name, but also its reason for being. Inglorious as it may seem to its present day citizens, the town once known as “The wickedest little city in the West,” started out as the Babylon that provided the gambling and whiskey dens and the houses of prostitution as close to the post as the law would allow. Eventually, the town and its trail herd citizens became so tough that even the military wrote bitter letters of complaint back to Fort Leavenworth.
The origins of Fort Dodge, now the Kansas Soldiers’ Home on Highway 54, just east of Dodge City’s limits, go back to 1847, when Fort Mann was set up at the Cimarron Crossing on the Santa Fe Trail, 22 miles west of the present Fort Dodge.
Col. Gilpin’s volunteers were garrisoned there to protect the commercial routes from Indian attacks. His recommendation for several adobe posts along the course of the Trail was well received by the War Department and led to the establishment of Fort Dodge at the close of the Civil War, according to David K. Strate, whose book Sentinel to the Cimarron defines the “frontier experience of Fort Dodge, Kansas.”
The importance of posts such as Fort Dodge in insuring [sic] peaceful passage along the trail and eventual settling of the area and establishment of cities, such as Dodge City, has never really been recognized. Intensity of Indian assaults along the route had resulted in suspension of mail service and most travel by 1864.
Major General Grenville Dodge was placed in command of the 11th and 16th Kansas cavalry regiment and went out into the harsh winter of 1865, since the Indians usually refrained from combat in winter months, to repair telegraph lines and reopen travel routes.
The new post was ordered built on March 17, 1865, between two fordable crossings, the Mulberry, 17 miles to the east, and the Cimarron, 22 miles to the west. The post rested in a narrow pasture off the river bank, overlooked by the limestone bluff to the north. This extended into open plain where ravines proved handy to Indians who might approach the fort, usually to steal horses and livestock.
Initial fortifications were crude earth dugouts excavated along the north bank of the Arkansas. Many men stationed there were Confederates who preferred a tussle with the Indians to languishing, perhaps dying, in northern prisons.
The soldiers had no lumber or hardware, so they had to use the available materials, grass and earth, to create the 70 sod dugouts. These were 10 by 12 feet in circumference and seven feet deep. The door to the south faced the river and a hole in the roof let in air and light. Banks of earth were bunks for the 48 soddies that slept from two to four men. Sanitation was poor and spring rains flooded the dugouts.
Pneumonia, dysentery, diarrhea and malaria were common that first year in the isolated fort. The general decided the soldiers named the dismal fort “Dodge” in its unpromising start to get even with him for bringing them there.
First shipments of lumber arrived in the summer of 1866 and officers’ quarters and a temporary hospital were erected, still sod and wooden bunks. Supply houses and horse corrals were the first permanent buildings of lumber. A field oven was the first piece of army equipment to improve the soldiers’ lot at the post. A sutler’s store was built, and immediately the merchant took advantage of the soldiers who had pay in their pockets. When they began quarrying stone to the north, five to 12 miles from the Fort, desertion became an even more acute problem at the post, since it was a choice of hard work with the stone or facing the Indians.
In 1886, a 43,000 acre military reservation was set out. A cemetery, guardhouse and a supply store for destitute civilians on the barren plains, sometimes victims of Indian raids, were built. During the next two years, permanent facilities built of limestone went up, including two barracks, a hospital, quartermaster building and a headquarters building to house the commanding officer. Several of these buildings still stand and are in use, including the commanding officer’s house, now the residence of the present superintendent of the Soldiers’ Home.
Both civilians and soldiers quarried the stone which required 60 teamsters and 200 mules to haul. Lt. George A. Husselberger directed the construction. He demonstrated a taste for durability and subtle beauty that is still apparent in those buildings still in use at the Fort.
Stones used were of varying length, but were cut to 18 inches in heights and two foot thickness. Each barracks held 50 men and was equipped with a kitchen and mess room, as well as dormitory. Latrines were erected behind the barracks. The hospital had a ward room, adequate for the sick of four companies, as well as an administration section and kitchen.
The commanding officer’s quarters was the only two-story structure on the post. The bottom floor had living quarters and administrative rooms where the commanding officer could host fellow officers or hold courts-martial. The second floor, provided with rifle ports, was for family use.
There were blacksmith shops to keep horses shod and 60 wagons in repair. Two large corrals of sod for the quartermaster and cavalry with four feet thick walls kept the Indians from raiding the supply of mounts and protected horses and herds from the severe winters of those first years.
Negro troops that made up a large part of the population of the post after the Civil War were segregated and confined into a 20 x 40 foot structure, part of which served as storage. They were also segregated at the hospital in a small separate frame structure. All buildings were placed in a circle facing inward to form parade grounds.
Skilled craftsmen made from $85 to $199 a month, and unskilled laborers made $35, but there was always a shortage of men and materials. Lumber and hardware were delivered from eastern Kansas or Santa Fe, New Mexico, where 1,000 feet of board would be delivered for only $30.
Many problems encountered during the building were local in origin, including frequent Indians attacks on the Fort, supply wagons and work details. Few recruits could be enticed to work at hard, dirty labor for $35 a month, with the possibility of a scalping thrown in.
The men at the Fort received criticism from headquarters for their seeming lack of control over the red man. General Marcy came out to investigate and his wagon train was attacked en route. Once there, he sent back a critical report of the newly erected buildings, saying “Quarters are so magnificent and smoothly dressed that they appeared to be designed for the National Capital.” The director of the building, Lt. Hesselberger, was singled out for criticism. His feat was rewarded with a court-martial and his name on the dedication stone was covered over with a buffalo robe during subsequent ceremonies.
A barracks used once for cholera victims was converted to a recreation room. The chaplain, Major White, complained that the spiritual and cultural life of the men was neglected, while their less noble interests were catered to. As a result, church services were held in the building on Sunday, although the chaplain complained frequently of having to conduct his worship rites from a pool table.
Life was hard on the plains and desertions were frequent. Dr. Tremaine, the post surgeon, was an advocate of better treatment and reductions of unnecessary hardships for the troopers.
In addition to providing protection for commercial trade routes, Ft. Dodge also provided safeguards for the frontier’s communities, including Dodge City, in the ’70s. This included protection from thieves, cattle rustlers and bank robbers, as well as the Indians.
The Fort distributed food and water to civilians during the severe winter of 1874 – two years after the establishment of Dodge City. It also contributed a column to the Dodge City newspaper on military and social activities on the post.
The sutler’s post was a popular spot on the reservation. Whiskey could be served from 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. each evening, with three drinks allowed per man. However, it appeared count was not too accurate since drunkenness seemed a common offense. The guard house, an 18 x 28 foot structure, was always full, even though reserved for the worst offenders.
The cemetery at Fort Dodge holds the bodies of many of Dodge City’s early day residents, as well as those of the post inhabitants. One of these is the body of Edward Masterson, brother of Bat, who was buried after being shot by a drunken gunfighter. The saying then was “The rich are buried at the Fort and the cowhands and poor are buried on Boot Hill or gone to hell.”
As civilization advanced, the Indians found no sanctuary from the white man’s army. General William T. Sherman, a typical example of the military turn of mind then, was sure that all attempts at civilization of the Indian were ridiculous. Extermination or reduction of their status to that of paupers with complete dependence on the government was his idea of their fate. Many Easterners were shocked at the treatment of the Indians, and truthfully, the men at the frontier had some reason to complain of the Easterners’ lack of comprehension of the savagery of the red man.
With the coming of the railroad in 1872 to Dodge City, and the threat of extinction of the buffalo, the Indians made a great final outburst of violence in an attempt to preserve their livelihood. Buffalo hides were selling for $3.50 each that year and dozens of hunters were on the scene to benefit from that price. By 1873, most of the buffalo had been annihilated, even to the south of the river where the Treaty of Medicine Lodge supposedly protected the buffalo and the Indians’ rights there. Renewed engagements against the Indians when they asserted their rights were held in 1874, with forays to the north of the Arkansas. General Nelson Miles kept up these attacks until the spirit of the Plains Indians was broken, and the last vestige of their culture disappeared.
Between 1870 and 1875, new buildings went up at Fort Dodge. Ten sets of officers’ and family quarters were erected, as well as frame building for civilian employees. A new guardhouse replaced the old, overcrowded structure. A granary holding one million pounds of grain was erected. Between 1874 and 1882, military life on the post was stable. Most excitement came out of Dodge City where trail herds waited to be sold. Longhorns strayed onto the reservations, sometimes tearing down laundry and scaring soldiers and their families.
By 1878, 100,000 cattle were driven into Dodge City regularly. Poor relations existed between the cowboys and the soldiers. A uniformed man could not enter town without being harassed by a cowman, often aided by a local lawman. The drinking establishments often took advantage of the soldiers.
At one time in 1877, Col. William Lewis took a detachment and marched on the city. The town judge hoisted a white flag and arbitration ensued. Dodge City’s famed “Peace Commission” was formed soon after this incident with the help of Col. Richard Dodge, who was furious when his personal servant, a young black man, was shot and left to die in the street. The Commission had on its roster such famed names as Wyatt Earp, Luke Short, Charlie Bassett and Bat Masterson.
The last of the Indian scares was an attempted migration of the Cheyenne under Bull Knife, to their home in South Dakota from El Reno, Oklahoma. In the Indian’s march through Kansas, several dozen settlers’ lives were lost. Although several Indians were brought back to Topeka for trial, with Ford County Attorney Michael Sutton as prosecuting attorney, the natives were acquitted for lack of evidence.
In December 1880, the Fort Dodge reserved lands were opened to homesteaders. The first 75 homesteads were claimed by Dodge City residents that included gamblers, saloon keepers, prostitutes and a few actual homesteaders. In 1889, the rest of the area was opened, with a real land rush.
On April 5, 1882, the Fort had been abandoned by the U.S. Army. The last of the troops marched southward to Camp Supply after the flag was lowered on October 2, 1882. Fort Dodge, guardian of the commercial frontier and the cattleman and homesteader, had fulfilled its purpose.
For the next eight years, the land and fort were placed under the hand of a custodian. One of these, Dodge City’s entrepreneur, Robert Wright, managed to exploit the facilities for drovers who awaited the sale of their cattle, and to purchase lands surrounding it with money he earned selling whiskey and buffalo hides. In January, 1890, Fort Dodge was deeded to the State of Kansas for use as a Soldiers’ Home.
Old troopers began arriving. Most of them were Civil War veterans. Others were veterans of the Mexican and Indian wars, many of whom had served with great honor in the army. Records show these early residents did not always retire peacefully. Many were dismissed for quarrelsomeness, drunkenness and the like. Even croquet had to be abandoned as a form of recreation when the mallets proved to be too handy a weapon to settle quarrels among the oldsters about scores.
Eventually, dependents and relatives of Kansas resident veterans were admitted as well as Confederate soldiers and Negro veterans.
The present-day Fort Dodge Soldiers’ Home has been enlarged to include a library, a modem intensive nursing care hall, a recreation center, five residence halls, and 100 cottages for members. Names of the streets and buildings reflect great military names such as Eisenhower, Nimitz, Sheridan, Garfield, Custer, Lincoln, Dewey and Walt. By this time, veterans of the Mexican, Civil, Indian, Spanish-American, Philippines, Boxer Rebellion, World War I and II, the Korean and Vietnam Wars have all been occupants.
The peaceful park, quiet, shaded tree-lined walks, and dignified buildings, both old and new, seem a far cry from a group of forsaken soddies hugging the river bank that made up the original fort in 1865.
Used by Permission of Dr. David Kay Strate, University of Northern Arizona, Flagstaff, Arizona