This sign is just off U.S. Hwy. 12 between Naches and Yakima. Sign was apparently placed in 1989 for the Washington State Centennial. Sign is in very poor condition.
Marker Name: Naches Basket Fort
Marker Text: Where you now stand was once the junction of a major Native American trail network. Trails branching out from this point covered much of the Washington Territory. One of the most famous of these routes, the Naches Pass Trail, could be accessed by riding north throug the Wenas. The Eel Trail crossed this junction, heading south toward Simcoe. By looking across the Naches River to the east, a remnant of the old trail can still be seen cutting down through the rimrock.
The first battles of the Yakima Indian War were fought south of Union Gap in 1855. In response Colonel George Wright marched the 9th Infantry into the Naches Valley the following Spring.
His troops located a large band of Native Americans camped near the trail junction. The threat of danger prompted the troops to hastily construct the famed “Fort Naches,” across the Naches River, just above is now Eschbach Park.
The fort was a gabion (basket) field work of earth which could protect a company or two of soldiers and their supplies. Fort Naches was abandoned the summer of 1856, when Wright moved his troops south to establish Fort Simcoe.
Fort Naches has long since disappeared, and the site has become known as “The Basket Fort.”