County of road: Ford County
Location of mark: US 54, rest area east of Bloom
Marker erected by: Kansas State Historical Society and Department of Transportation
Marker text: The Fort Dodge-Camp Supply Military Road passed several hundred feet west of this marker. The route was established in 1868 during General Philip H. Sheridan's winter campaign against Indians in Texas and the Indian Territory. This ungraded prairie trail, approximately 90 miles long, was important for transporting supplies from Fort Dodge and Dodge City to Camp (later Fort) Supply, in present Oklahoma, and was an important link in the communications system of western outposts. In the 1880's, a government telegraph line was erected along the route of the trail. In Clark Counry, two 50-foot square fortifications (redoubts) were built to house cavalry patrols assigned to keep the mail and supply route open, In the 1870's and 1880's, the military road served as a branch of the Western trail over which cattle were driven from Texas to Dodge City and beyond. The present road between Bloom and Ashland follows the route of The Fort Dodge ~ Camp Supply Military Road
"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