The Old Military Road was created by the US Government in 1837 to provide a line of defense along the country's western border and protect settlers.
From the excellent and very-detailed article in the 1942 Kansas Historical Quarterly by Louise Barry (WELL worth a read), this excerpt: (
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"On July 2, 1836, President Jackson approved the enabling act for the better protection of the Western frontier. It provided: (1) for the surveying and opening of a military road from a point on the upper Mississippi (between the mouths of the St. Peters' and Des Moines rivers) to Red river in the south; (2) that the road should pass west of the states of Missouri and Arkansas, with the condition that the assent of the Indian tribes through whose territory the road would pass must be first obtained; (3) for the construction of military posts along the road (locations unspecified); (4) for the use of United States troops to perform the required labor; (5) the sum of $100,000 to accomplish the objects of the act.
Two weeks later the Secretary of War wrote U. S. army officers Col. Zachary Taylor, Maj. W. G. McNeil and Maj. T. F. Smith, to inform them they had been selected as commissioners to lay out the road and locate sites for military posts. . . .
. . .
[By 1854] Fort Scott [had] continued as a frontier post for nearly twelve years. Intended primarily as a check upon surrounding Indian tribes, particularly the Osage, its troops also patrolled the borders in an attempt to control illegal liquor traffic from the settlements to the Indians. Troop movements were frequent. There were expeditions to Indian encampments to quell threatened uprisings or to settle inter-tribal disputes. In 1843 dragoons from Fort Scott were among the troops escorting a trade caravan bound for Santa Fe. The fort's largest garrison was the First U. S. infantry with an aggregate strength of 444. Stationed there in 1846, most of the regiment was sent to fight in the Mexican War in 1847.
As the frontier advanced westward the importance of Fort Scott decreased. In 1852 present Fort Riley was established as Camp Center on the Kansas river at what was thought to be the head of navigation of that stream. The following year Fort Scott was abandoned.
The military road, however, continued for several years to be an important highway. In 1854 Kansas became a territory and a law enacted by the first Kansas territorial legislature (meeting in 1855) stated: "The road as now located and opened from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Scott, known as the military road, is hereby declared a territorial road." Within this decade other highways, came to be more traveled. Only a few landmarks can be pointed out today as marking the route of the old Western military road in Kansas." [end]
This probably spurred the Daughters of the American Revolution to mark the Old Military Raod with granite markers.
In 1935 the Daughters of the American Reviolution (DAR) dedicated a granite monument with a plaque and bas-relief map of the Old Military Road near Kniveton, pretty close to the centennial of the estatblishment of the Old Military Road. The location was chosen because then new KS State Highway 57 intersected the Old Military Road there.
75 years later the alignments of the old highways had changed and many had been renumbered. Time had bypassed towns like Kniveton, which faded into oblivion. In 2011 the old DAR Military Road marker near Kniveton was moved a few miles east to the intersection of SH 171 (old KS 57) and the US 69. It is in a small right-of-way area on the south side of the junction, near the Conoco gas station. The marker can actually be seen and visited now.
From the Kansas Historical Quarterly Aug 1935: (
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334 THE KANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
"A granite marker, locating the intersection of the old Fort Leavenworth-Fort Scott-Fort Gibson military road with Kansas highway No. 57 at Kniveton was dedicated June 19, 1935. The bronze tablet on the shaft bears the inscription: "This Tablet Marks the Intersection of the Old Military Road of 1837 With the New State Highway No. 57. Erected by Oceanic Hopkins Chapter of the D. A. R., Pittsburg, Kan., 1935." Mrs. Loren E. Rex, of Wichita, state regent of the Daughters of the American Revolution, delivered the dedicatory address. Mrs. 0. P. Dellinger, of Pittsburg, made the presentation to the state and F. W. Brinkerhoff, of Pittsburg, chairman of the committee on marking and mapping historic sites in Kansas, created by the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, gave the acceptance talk. Mrs. D. L. Dunn, of Pittsburg, supervised the unveiling. The highway department was represented by Earle C. Todd, of Independence, commissioner for the fourth district. The marker is on the north side of the road, a short distance east of the railroad tracks at Kniveton."
A small plaque at the base of the marker was added in 2011. It reads:
"RELOCATED
2011
JCT US 69 at KS 171
Daughters of the American Revolution
Oceanus Hopkins Chapter"