---

Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings

	FORT ATKINSON Nebraska
Washington County, on a secondary road, about 1 mile east of the town of Fort Calhoun. Fort Atkinson State Historical Park The Friends of Fort Atkinson

Ownership and Administration. Various.

Significance. This fort, which was active between 1819 and 1827, was the earliest of a line of frontier forts extending from Fort Snelling, Minn., to Fort Jesup, La., and was a center of the fur trade. In February 1819 Secretary of War John C. Calhoun ordered Col. Henry Atkinson, commanding the 6th Infantry at Plattsburgh, N.Y., to move his unit westward, up the Missouri River, to build a fortification at Council Bluffs, a site visited by Lewis and Clark. Not until fall did Atkinson and his troops, including women and children, complete the 2,628-mile trek. At the river bottom near the bluffs, they constructed Cantonment Missouri, but after a winter of disease and hardship and a disastrous summer flood, they moved to a site high on the top of the bluffs. In the fall of 1820 they finally completed a brick-and-log fort, soon known as Fort Atkinson. Buildings at the fort included barracks, officers' houses, a sutler's house and store, an Indian council house, a hospital, powder magazine, laundresses' quarters, stables, and stockade. Near the fort were located a dairy, gristmill, limekiln, sawmill, blacksmith shop, and brickyard.

Fort Atkinson operated more as a frontier village and social center than as a fort. The soldiers, forsaking military science and drill, began farming and stockraising under the supervision of a director of agriculture and a superintendent of livestock, and by 1821 had tilled 504 acres of land. Agricultural industries included dairying, cheesemaking, meat curing, soapmaking, and milling. In their spare time the soldiers hunted and fished or played billiards or cards at the sutler's store. Fur traders brought news from St. Louis or the Indian country. Indians came to the fort to hold councils and trade at the Indian agency. In 1823 and 1825 Colonel Leavenworth and Colonel Atkinson, respectively, led expeditions from the fort against the Arikara Indians. Occasionally, exploring expeditions on their way to or returning from the west stopped by the fort. In 1827 the Army abandoned it; and, to afford better protection for the Santa Fe Trail, moved the garrison down the Missouri to build Cantonment Leavenworth.

Fort Atkinson is a Registered National Historic Landmark relating primarily to Indian-military affairs in the trans-Mississippi West.

Present Appearance. The site of Fort Atkinson lies on a plateau crowning timbered bluffs rising above the west edge of the Missouri River Valley. The only visible remains at the site are low earth mounds on the east edge, the rest of the site having been leveled and placed in cultivation. Archeological excavations by the Nebraska State Historical Society have yielded many artifacts and exposed the building foundations. The site of the post, including the cemetery, the fortified section, and outlying buildings, covers 140 acres. Of these, the fortified section and 90 percent of the sites of outlying buildings are privately owned.

NHL Designation: 07/04/61