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Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings

	FORT GIBSON Oklahoma
Muskogee County, on the northern edge of the town of Fort Gibson. Fort Gibson Historic Site

Ownership and Administration. State of Oklahoma; Planning and Resources Board through the Division of State Parks.

Significance. One of a line of frontier forts founded early in the 19th century to control the Indians and maintain peace in the Mississippi Valley, this fort was a highly important one. Unlike the other frontier forts—such as Snelling, Leavenworth, Towson, Atkinson, and Jesup—it was located in the Indian Territory and was more directly involved in Indian affairs, particularly the relocation of the Southeast tribes to Indian Territory. It was also a trade and social center and served as a base for several Plains expeditions.

Col. Matthew Arbuckle established the fort in 1824 on the Grand (Verdigris) River near its confluence with the Arkansas River. Its original mission was to prevent Osage attacks on the Cherokees, who were already filtering into Indian Territory. During the period of Indian Removal (1825-40), troops from the fort helped receive and care for the immigrant Cherokees, Creeks, and Seminoles; tried to enforce peace among them; and attempted to protect them from the Plains Indians. For a time the fort housed the Cherokee Agency.

Troops from Fort Gibson provided escorts for surveyors marking the boundaries of Indian lands; founded subposts such as Forts Coffee, Wayne, Holmes, Arbuckle, and Washita to police other parts of Indian Territory; laid out a network of roads; served on patrols to prevent the flow of liquor into Indian Territory; and on occasion furnished escorts for the Santa Fe Trail. Peace commissions met at the fort to conclude treaties with both native and immigrant tribes. Scores of West Point graduates gained their first military experience there, where newly activated units such as the Rangers and the Dragoon Regiment were also tested.

The fort was also the base of operations for three important Plains expeditions that sought to persuade the untamed tribes to conclude peace treaties with the United States. Two of these, in 1832 and 1833, failed; the third, the Dragoon Expedition of 1834, met with the Kiowas, Comanches, and Wichitas. The latter resulted in a treaty, in 1835, in which the Plains tribes promised not to molest travelers on the Santa Fe Trail and to quit warring on the immigrant tribes.

Because of its location near the confluence of the Arkansas and the Grand Rivers, Fort Gibson became a center of trade for keelboats and later river steamers, which sailed up the Arkansas and unloaded at the fort, the traders obtaining return cargoes from Indians. It was also a way station for emigrants, freighters, and traders traveling along the Texas Road.

Originally a four-company post, in 1831 Fort Gibson was expanded to accommodate a regiment, and it became the headquarters of the 7th Infantry. The post consisted of a group of closely packed log buildings surrounded by a log palisade. Blockhouses guarded two of the four corners and commanded all four sides. Log quarters and barracks, the sutler's store, two hospitals, and other structures stood outside the stockade. In 1846 construction began on a stone fort near the log one, but by 1857, when only one building had been completed, the Army moved out of the fort. During the Civil War, Union forces reoccupied it, and Regular troops garrisoned it from 1866 to 1889, when it was finally abandoned. During the latter period, troops completed the new post, which consisted of 7 stone buildings and 10 frame ones.

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

Stockade, sally port, officers' quarters, and southeast bastion, at Fort Gibson, Oklahoma. Erected in 1824, this fort in the heart of Indian Territory protected the relocated Southeastern tribes from the Plains Indians and tried to maintain peace. Until 1889 it remained a major frontier post.

Present Appearance. The original fort fell into ruins, but in 1936 the State of Oklahoma reconstructed the log stockade and a number of out lying buildings almost on the original site. Except for the use of more durable material, the reconstruction is faithful to the original. Interpretive markers on the 55-acre site tell much of the history of the fort. On the ridge overlooking the reconstructed stockade is the site of the second fort of which several stone buildings and ruins are still standing. Much of that site is privately owned. A two-story stone barracks, owned by the State Historical Society, is the most imposing survival. The reconstructed original fort is open to the public.

NHL Designation: 12/19/60