From the day they broke ground until the day they abandoned it, Fort Phil Kearny was under siege. One hundred forty years later, some of Wyoming’s most dramatic historical
sites are under a different sort of siege.
The scene is tranquil now on this fine day, but let’s revisit some of the key sites and see how they are after one hundred forty years. Fort Phil Kearny itself was built on this low bench between Piney and Little Piney Creeks. As part of the treaty that ended the so called Red Cloud War, the fort was abandoned. Eventually the Indians burned it. During the one hundred years when it was part of a ranch, the fort site was periodically plowed and seeded as a hay field. Very little of the original native vegetation remains.
The high point south of the fort called “Pilot Knob” was used as a lookout post where soldiers could observe a stretch of the Bozeman Trail and the road to the Pinery and warn the fort if Indians were attacking parties on them. The “Knob” has changed very little.
The bodies of Fetterman and the many other troops and civilians who died here have been removed from the post cemetery and reinterred at the Little Big Horn National Cemetery. The site is now an alfalfa field.
Many of the skirmishes occurred when Indians attacked wood cutting crews and soldier escorts moving between the fort and the “Pinery” near present Story, Wyoming. The Pinery road followed Sullivant Ridge which is rapidly becoming a housing development.
This is the scene of the famous Wagon Box fight where a small group of soldiers armed with repeating rifles, held off charges by many Indian warriors. It’s now a horse pasture with a combination of native and introduced species.
Some of the sites associated with Fort Phil Kearny sites are relatively pristine, while others are very much altered from how they were in eighteen sixty six. I’m Gene Gade of the University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service.