Fort McPherson

The cemetery began on August 5, 1873, when Colonel J. J. Reynolds and Major Alexander J. Perry chose a site about 4,400 feet from the fort's flagstaff; an October order set aside 107 acres. By 1874 an inspector counted 389 burials, among the first removals from Fort Kearny and Colorado's Fort Sedgwick. Lieutenant John Grattan's men, killed near Fort Laramie in 1854, share a common grave under a marble monument, and Spotted Horse, a Pawnee scout, was brought from Fort Kearny. In 1920 all but 20 acres went to the Interior Department, and later to farmland.

What the plaque says

Fort McPherson The fort was established on the Oregon Trail on the south side of the Platte River in October 1863, on the eve of intensified Indian raids on the Plains. Built next to the well-known Cottonwood Springs and McDonald ranche, it commanded a strategic north-south Indian trail across the Platte valley. First known as Cantonment McKean and then Fort Cottonwood, in February 1866 the fort was named for Major-General James B. McPherson. It served to protect the important Platte valley line of travel and communication and was the base for innumerable scouting parties and for field campaigns in 1865, 1866 and 1869. General Carr's campaign in 1869 broke the power of the Cheyennes and cleared the surrounding area from more than temporary Indian threats. The Russian prince Alexis prepared here for his famous buffalo hunt in 1871. General Custer, Buffalo Bill, the North Brothers and their Pawnee scouts were often at the Fort. The fort was abandoned in 1880, but a portion of the military reservation is now the Fort McPherson National Cemetery where rest soldiers from McPherson and other frontier forts. Lincoln County Historical Society Historical Land Mark Council

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Buffalo Bill Ranch State Historical Park — 14 mi
  Scout's Rest, the North Platte ranch house and barn of William F. Cody, in the town where his Old Glory Blowout of July 4, 1882 became the first act of the Wild West.
• Golden Spike Tower and Bailey Yard — 16 mi
  A tower with seventh- and eighth-floor decks over Union Pacific's Bailey Yard in North Platte, the world's largest railroad classification yard, in a town the railroad laid out and fed troops from.

More markers nearby

• Fort McPherson and North Platte — 4.9 mi
• Road Ranches Along the Platte — 5.6 mi
• Sioux Lookout — 12 mi
• Fort McPherson — 14 mi