Fort Dodge

The soldiers' home came from a Dodge City campaign to reuse the post after 1882, and in 1889 President Grover Cleveland signed a bill allowing part of the military reservation to be used for one. It opened in early 1890 in the old fort buildings, and its first residents included Civil War veterans from both armies, along with men from the Indian campaigns and the Mexican War. At its first Independence Day, in 1890, more than 200 Dodge City residents came out. A state veterans' cemetery opened beside it in 2002.

What the plaque says

Fort Dodge Fort Dodge, named for Maj. Gen. Grenville M. Dodge, was established here in 1865. It was a supply depot and base of operations against warring Plains Tribes. Custer, Sheridan, Miles, Hancock, "Wild Bill" Hickok and "Buffalo Bill" Cody are figures in its history. The site was an old camping ground for wagon trains near the western junction of "Dry" and "Wet" routes of the Santa Fe trail. The first buildings were of sod and adobe although some of the troops lived in dugouts. Several of the stone buildings erected later are in use today. The fort was abandoned in 1882 and is now a state soldiers' home. The Spanish explorer, Coronado, is believed to have crossed the Arkansas river a few miles east of here in 1541. Erected by Kansas Historical Society and State Highway Commission

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Boot Hill Museum — 4.7 mi
  Dodge City's museum on the site of the original Boot Hill cemetery, a 1950s replica of Front Street built around a collection one family began gathering in the 1870s.
• Santa Fe Trail Ruts west of Dodge City — 15 mi
  Two miles of wagon swales up to 400 feet wide on a grass hillside above the Arkansas, nine miles west of Dodge City, a National Historic Landmark seen from a pull-off on US-50.
• Fromme-Birney Round Barn — 28 mi
  A sixteen-sided horse barn of 1912 on the wheat country south of Mullinville, built for 28 draft horses and a French Percheron stallion and outdated by a tractor four years later.

More markers nearby

• The Road to Santa Fe — 3.7 mi
• Dodge City: Cowboy Capital — 6.2 mi
• Fort Dodge-Camp Supply Military Road — 17 mi
• The Santa Fe Trail — 23 mi