Fort Sedgwick

The name arrived secondhand twice. John Sedgwick, a Union corps commander, was killed by a Confederate sharpshooter at Spotsylvania; the post beside Julesburg took his name the next year, and Colorado named a county for the post in April 1889, carving it out of Logan County. The Army left in 1871 and the reservation passed to the Interior Department in 1884. Nothing of the fort stands on the private land a mile and a quarter south. Its best-known afterlife is fiction: the lonely post of Dances with Wolves is Fort Sedgwick, though the film was shot in South Dakota.

What the plaque says

This memorial is the property of the State of Colorado Due south 1¼ miles is the site of Fort Sedgwick established in September, 1864, as a United States Army post. Called Camp Rankin and Post Julesburg. Name changed in November, 1865, to honor General John Sedgwick, who was killed at Spottsylvania May 9, 1864. The fort protected the stage line and emigrant trains from Indians. Abandoned in May, 1871. From this fort, Sedgwick County derives its name. Erected by the State Historical Society of Colorado from the Mrs. J. N. Hall Foundation the Julesburg Historical Society 1940

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Julesburg — 6.5 mi
  The town that moved four times: a trading post, a stage stop burned in 1865, the wickedest end-of-track town on the Union Pacific, and finally Denver Junction renamed.

More markers nearby

• Old Julesburg — 1.9 mi