Fort Davis

Cantonment Davis, as the post was formally called, sat on the south bank of the Arkansas River about two and a half miles northeast of present Muskogee, close to the Texas Road. It had no stockade. Thirteen wooden buildings covered about eight acres around a prehistoric mound, which with the slope of the ground hid Confederate activity and gave a clear view of the country. Troops from the Five Tribes, Texas and Arkansas garrisoned it, and for a short time it was Confederate headquarters in Indian Territory. The site, listed in the National Register in 1971, is private land.

What the plaque says

Fort Davis Established Nov. 1861 by Gen. Albert Pike, C.S. Army. Named for Pres. Jefferson Davis, who had been stationed in this region when a Lieut. U.S. Army. Nearly one million dollars spent on this post by Confederates. In Second Federal Invasion Ft. Davis destroyed Dec. 27, 1862, by U.S. troops including Third Indian Home Guard Regt. under Col. W.A. Phillips. Oklahoma Historical Society 71-1995

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Gibson Historic Site — 4.8 mi
  The army's first post in what became Oklahoma, built at Three Forks in 1824, where removed nations arrived; deeded to the Cherokee in 1857, it later housed the Dawes Commission.
• Honey Springs Battlefield — 20 mi
  The July 17, 1863 battlefield on the Texas Road, the largest fight in Indian Territory, where Cherokee and Muscogee regiments fought on both sides and the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry held.
• Cherokee National History Museum — 22 mi
  The Cherokee Nation's own history museum, in the brick capitol it built on Tahlequah's square after the Civil War, a short walk from its 1844 supreme court and its 1875 prison.

More markers nearby

• Fort Gibson — 4.8 mi
• Wigwam Neosho — 4.9 mi
• Chief Pushmataha — 4.9 mi
• Tullahassee Mission — 4.9 mi