September 9th, 2022
Today’s adventure took us to Fort Kearny.
A few tidbits..
“Fort Kearny was the first Western military post built to protect emigrants on the trails west, and it later served as the headquarters for a number of small outposts along the emigrant trails. This military post was strategically located at a junction where various eastern feeder trails merged into one. This broad and vast single trail followed the Platte River 330 miles west to Fort Laramie. Fort Kearny was also a place where emigrants could resupply and a Pony Express station.
After the fort was abandoned by the military, the land was made available to homesteaders. In 1922, the Fort Kearny Memorial Association was founded; and purchased 40 acres of land at the site of Fort Kearny, which consists of about half the land the fort formerly sat upon. In 1929 this land became a state park. None of the original fort stands today. The area surrounding the fort has been mostly developed with farms, so all traces of the old migratory trails are gone. Still, archeologists have identified the locations where several buildings once stood. Since few pictures or sketches of the fort were ever made, it is difficult to know what the fort used to be like; however, a replica of the blacksmith shop is now part of the museum”
More information can be found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Kearny
https://nebraskastudies.org/en/1800-1849/forts-built/fort-kearny/
https://history.nebraska.gov/blog/marker-monday-kearney-fort-kearny
https://www.nps.gov/places/000/fort-kearny-state-historical-park.htm
We signed in at the visitor center and had a great chat with the docent there. She told us much about the park and its history. Through pictures and written diaries, they have found many of the original cedar posts of the buildings. Those original posts are now covered by other posts so we can get an idea of where many of the building stood. (Of course, like most historic places, money is an issue to build replicas.)
So we went thru the little museum, saw the film, and then walked the grounds.
Very interesting..there was some information at the Archway also.
Blacksmith/Carpenter Shop – Reconstructed 1994:
My grandfather was a blacksmith for the mines so it is always interesting to me to see the old time shops.
The Grounds:
The post you see are the markings of where they unearthed the original cedar postings:
The Powder Magazine – Reconstructed 1975:
Going inside:
One of inside pictures:
Every fort had parade grounds with a flag. Here is Fort Kearny’s Parade Grounds:
One of the original cedar posts uncovered:
Fort Kearny was an open fort – no wall or barriers. However, at one point, there were threats of Native Americans so a protected area was built. Whenever there were threats, all personnel, civilian and military moved into this protected area.
Each corner had this type of structure – to be able to see what was happening in all directions and defend themselves.
The folks would be in here until the threat was over and they could return to their homes.
Most cottonwoods in this area will live to be 100 years old. Our docent told us that one of the volunteers at the fort is starting new trees from the sprouts. Since they do not know how old many of these trees are, they want to make sure this fort continues to have them. How cool is that!
The Happy Campers – LOL!:
The weather had significantly cooled down – from a high of 101 yesterday to a high of 65 today. We were blessed to be able to see the fort this morning because it rained this afternoon while we just relaxed.
September 10th, 2022
We woke to 49 degrees and rain – Yuck. So we dumped what needed to be dumped, filled what needed to be filled, found a great laundromat and did laundry and just caught up on things in the motorhome.
Yes, we are still doing repairs, rearranging, and upgrading so soon I will have a blog on all we did.
Tomorrow we head to North Platte so stay tuned and enjoy today.
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