Fort Larned

Fort Larned in western Kansas operated from 1859 to 1878. Fort Larned was established to protect traffic along the Santa Fe Trail from hostile American Indians and as an agency for the administration of the Central Plains Indians by the Bureau of Indian Affairs under the terms of the Fort Wise Treaty of 1861. The fort's service ended as a combination of the tribes' relocation to reservations and the completion of railroads across Kansas that ended the need for the Santa Fe Trail.
Fort Larned was the site of a meeting between General Winfield Scott Hancock and several Cheyenne chiefs on April 12, 1867, in which Hancock intended to impress the Dog Soldier chiefs with his military power. Following that meeting, Hancock, along with George Armstrong Custer and the 7th U.S. Cavalry traveled west of Fort Larned to a combined Cheyenne and Lakota camp, inciting the villagers to flee. Hancock ordered the village burned, beginning a summer of warfare known as Hancock's War. Fort Larned assisted in bringing Hancock's War to an end by supplying the Medicine Lodge Treaty. With nine historic buildings, the fort survives as one of the best-preserved examples of Indian Wars-period forts. Most of the buildings, including the barracks, commissary, and officers quarters, are furnished to their original appearance.