Fort Wallace ( 1865–1882) was a

US Cavalry The United States Cavalry, or U.S. Cavalry, was the designation of the mounted force of the United States Army. The United States Cavalry was formally created by an act of United States Congress, Congress on 3 August 1861 and ceased as a dist ...

fort A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from La ...

built in

Wallace County, Kansas Wallace County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kansas. Its county seat is Sharon Springs. As of the 2020 census, the county population was 1,512, making it the second-least populous county in Kansas ( Greeley County is the least). T ...

to help defend settlers against

Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. The Cheyenne comprise two Native American tribes, the Só'taeo'o or Só'taétaneo'o (more commonly spelled as Suhtai or Sutaio) and the (also spelled Tsitsistas, The term for th ...

and

Sioux The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin ( ; Dakota/ Lakota: ) are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations people from the Great Plains of North America. The Sioux have two major linguistic divisions: the Dakota and Lakota peoples (translati ...

raids and protect the stages. It is located on Pond Creek, and it was named after General W. H. L. Wallace. There were accommodations for 500 men and the troops were scattered between Fort Hays and Fort Denver. All that remains today is the cemetery, but for a period of over a decade Fort Wallace was one of the most important military outposts on the frontier.

Fort Wallace Museum

Today, Fort Wallace is represented by a privately operated museum nearby in the town of Wallace, with relics from the fort as well as photos, reproduction items, and literature covering the post's history and the settlement of the

Great Plains The Great Plains is a broad expanse of plain, flatland in North America. The region stretches east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and grassland. They are the western part of the Interior Plains, which include th ...

. A casting of the

plesiosaur The Plesiosauria or plesiosaurs are an Order (biology), order or clade of extinct Mesozoic marine reptiles, belonging to the Sauropterygia. Plesiosaurs first appeared in the latest Triassic Period (geology), Period, possibly in the Rhaetian st ...

Elasmosaurus ''Elasmosaurus'' () is a genus of plesiosaur that lived in North America during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous period, at about 80.6 to 77million years ago. The first specimen was discovered in 1867 near Fort Wallace, Kansas, US, and ...

'' discovered by Turner and Scout William Comstock is also on display. Facades of some of the buildings from Fort Wallace and from the Old Town of Wallace are featured in the Milford Becker Addition opened in 2017.

Location

The old Fort Wallace cemetery still exists, and is located next to the Wallace Township Cemetery at .

References

{{Reflist

External links

Fort tours

Wallace Buildings and structures in Wallace County, Kansas 1865 establishments in Kansas