Historical Marker · No. 455
Camp Collier
Fall River County · South Dakota
Erected by South Dakota State Historical Society, Fall River County Historical Society and Edgemont Chamber of Commerce, 1974
The 1974 bronze is frank about why the camp was needed: the Sioux, it says, resented the white invasion of their sacred Paha Sapa. It blames them for that spring's killings in Red Canyon, among them the Metz family in April 1876, though accounts at the time also pointed to the outlaw Persimmon Bill and his gang. By the bronze's own telling the garrison's worst enemies were alkaline water, boredom and desertion. When the coaches took a shorter road by Jenney Stockade, the post was dismantled in June 1877.
What the plaque says
Camp Collier June 1876 - June 1877 Camp at the Mouth of Red Canyon, sometimes called Camp Collier, was established at this site in mid-June 1876 to protect travelers over the 150-mile Cheyenne-Black Hills stage road. It came into being after the Sioux, resentful of the white invasion of their sacred Paha Sapa, had that spring killed a number of persons traveling through the steep-walled canyon, believed to be the most practical route from Cheyenne to the newly-found Black Hills gold fields. The camp was garrisoned by Co. K, Fourth Infantry, on detached service from its headquarters post at Fort Laramie, Wyoming Territory, and it was commanded by Captain William S. Collier. The garrison initially included two officers, 48 enlisted men and one civilian physician, but sub- sequently varied from 38 to 56, excluding the women laundresses and their children. The troopers constructed a stockade 125 feet square, with bastions on the northeast and southwest corners, on the flat below the mouth of the canyon, and planted ever- greens around it. The Cheyenne-Black Hills telegraph line reached the post on 30 Septem- ber and Custer on 19 October 1876. There was little trouble with the Indians following establishment of the camp, but alkaline water, boredom, and desertions were major problems. The stockade was abandoned 13 June 1877 when the stage company opened a new short-cut route from Hat Creek to Jenney Stockade and Deadwood. The buildings were dismantled and all salvageable lumber and other equipment taken southwest to Camp on Sage Creek as Co. K departed for its new station at Fort D. A. Russell near Cheyenne. While other Army units had camped for brief periods within the Black Hills, Camp Collier at the Mouth of Red Canyon had the distinction of being the first military establishment of any permanence in the Hills proper, existing for approximately one year. Erected 1974 by the South Dakota State Historical Society in cooperation with the Fall River County Historical Society and the Edgemont Chamber of Commerce
Where it stands
43.34084, -103.78284 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- The Mammoth Site — 16 miA housing lot in Hot Springs where a bulldozer turned up a tusk in 1974 and the developer gave up the subdivision for sixty-one mammoths.
- Wind Cave National Park — 21 miA cave that breathes through a hole the size of a dinner plate, lined with nearly all the boxwork known on Earth, under a prairie restocked with bison shipped from New York.