Military Road - Fort Supply, OK - Wagon Roads and Trails on Waymarking.com

County of mark: Woodward County
location of mark: US 412, 2 miles NW of Fort Supply
Mark erected by: Oklahoma Historical Society

Marker text:

MILITARY ROAD CROSSING Here, between 1874 and 1890, supply wagons, a daily stage coach and the U. S. Mail moved over this earliest known trail from Dodge City, Kansas to Fort Elliott, Texas. The fort first known as Cantonment on Sweetwater" was established after the Kiowa, Comanche and Cheyenne attack on Adobe Walls in June of 1874.

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"On November 12, 1868, Colonel George A Custer of the Seventh Cavalry, left his camp six miles east of Dodge City on the Arkansas River, marching five miles south to Mulberry Creek, where he joined General Alfred Sully and the infantry with the supply train. At this point there were about eleven hundred men in the force. This force of military men maintained a steady march, covering twenty miles on the 13th, and eighteen miles on the 14th, crossing Cavalry Creek and coming into camp on Bear Creek. On the 15th, snow and chilling winds slowed the column, only making eleven miles, to the Cimarron River. On the 16th, the command marched eighteen miles south and then completed nine more miles south/southwest to Beaver River. During the afternoon guides discovered the trail of an Indian party estimated to be about 150 warriors. On the 17th, another trail was found. Later this trail was determined this was the trail of Sully from the previous September. Sixteen miles were covered that day as the troops moved east of Beaver River. On November 18, a fifteen mile march brought the full command to Wolf Creek at its confluence with Beaver River. General Field Orders No. 8, Headquarters, District of the Upper Arkansas, named the spot Camp Supply.

  "The next few days were spent building a military post. Stockades to protect from a surprise raid from the Indians were erected, a blockhouse, storehouse and wells were dug. Building crews laughingly referred to the name Camp Supply as a "misnomer, for while there was a partial supply of everything, there was not an adequate supply of anything."

  "A reporter from the New York Herald by the name of Keim observed that the post in its finished condition on December 4, 1868 was:

Dec 26, 1868
  "Of sufficient strength to be defended by a small force against any number of warriors that may undertake to attack it. The north and west fronts consisted of a stockade; the east and south are made up of warehouses for stores. At the northeast and southwest angles are platforms sweeping all sides of the fort, and at the northwest and southeast angles are block houses with loopholes. From all points the rifles of the troops have a range of at least 800 yards."
~ Harper's Weekly about the Fort Dodge/Camp Supply Road

Road of Trail Name: Fort Dodge/Camp Supply Road State: Oklahoma County: Woodward County Historical Significance: Open up the land for western movement and army cleansing of the native irritations - as they called it then Years in use: 17 years How you discovered it: Trolling for historic markers and cruisin' down the highway (UD 412) is desolate western Oklahoma. Book on Wagon Road or Trial: The Wagon-Road Economy in the Dodge City-Panhandle Region By C. Robert Haywood Website Explination: http://www.santafetrailresearch.com/research/fort-supply-oklahoma.html Why?: US mail, stagecoaches, and most important military supplies to out on the fringe western m army forts. Directions: US 412 on the north side of the road, 2 miles NW of Fort Supply, the town not the historic site.

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Date Logged Log User Rating   03/04/2022 The Snowdog visited it