Lunette Blair-Blockhouse

Lunette Blair-Civil War Sentinel

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Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits

Throughout the Civil War, Confederate armies coveted the stores of Union supplies at Fort Scott and attempted to capture them. To protect the town, in 1863, U.S. Army Engineers built four blockhouses or lunettes called Forts Lincoln, Henning, Insley, and Blair. These blockhouses and their large cannons, along with forty miles of entrenchments protected Fort Scott from would be Confederate raids. Fresh off the heels of a military defeat at Mine Creek in October 1864, General Sterling Price's army diverted its plans to capture the town after accessing its strong defenses.

After the Civil War, the U.S. Army sold all of the blockhouses at public auction. All but Lunette Blair were eventually torn down or disassembled. Over the course of the century after the Civil War, Lunette Blair was moved several times. It functioned as a carpenter shop for forty years before being sold in 1906. In 1924, the Western Automobile Insurance Company began using the blockhouse on its logo after it was moved to Carroll Plaza (Fort Scott's parade ground that had become a city park). By 1959, after two more moves, the blockhouse had fallen into a state of disrepair; residents of Fort Scott essentially had it reconstructed.

Today, Lunette Blair stands on Skubitz Plaza near Fort Scott National Historic Site, a visual reminder of the protection and security it provided Fort Scott during the Civil War. Legislation has been introduced to transfer ownership of the blockhouse to the National Park Service.

Twin Trees Monument

Just east of Lunette Blair is a monument with the likenesses of two tree stumps and a plague in front that reads. " The blood that flowed in Kansas before and during the Civil War nourished the twin trees of Liberty and Union" . Duplicates of this plaque can be found at other Civil War monuments in Kansas including those at Baxter Springs and Osawatomie.