Fort Robinson and the Railroad

The rails that made this post closed an older one. A fort on the line was easier to supply and closer to the Pine Ridge Reservation, so the Army began enlarging Fort Robinson in 1887 and abandoned Fort Laramie in 1890. The trains also brought so many homesteaders that the post commander had to mark the boundaries of the military wood reserve to keep it from being settled. And when the Ghost Dance alarmed Pine Ridge in November 1890, the Ninth Cavalry left for the agency by railroad on November 19 under Major Guy V. Henry.

What the plaque says

Fort Robinson and the Railroad On January 20, 1885, Congress granted the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad a right-of-way through the Fort Robinson Military Reservation. Later this line was acquired by the Chicago and North Western. With direct rail access in 1886, the fort continued to expand its regional importance, and its military use was assured well into the twentieth century. The railroad's arrival also spurred settlement with the founding of the town of Crawford in 1886. Chicago and North Western Transportation Company Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Robinson State Park — 0.5 mi
  The army post beside the Red Cloud Agency where Crazy Horse was bayoneted in 1877 and Morning Star's Northern Cheyenne broke out into the January cold of 1879.
• Toadstool Geologic Park — 15 mi
  A pocket of badlands in the Oglala National Grassland where sandstone caps balance on clay stems, ancient tracks cross the rock, and a trail leads on to a 10,000-year-old bison bone bed.
• Agate Fossil Beds National Monument — 22 mi
  A fossil quarry on the Niobrara that also keeps the gifts Red Cloud and other Lakota and Cheyenne visitors gave the ranching family who were their friends for thirty-five years.

More markers nearby

• K-9 Training Area — 0.2 mi
• Sea Level Bench Mark — 0.2 mi
• The Flight of the Cheyennes — 0.3 mi
• Officers' Row, 1874-1875 — 0.4 mi