Fort Sidney

Behind the soldiers in this story stood Soap Suds Row. The Army had recognized company washerwomen since 1802, four to a company with a daily ration each, and they were often wives of senior enlisted men, paid at rates a post council set. Fort Sidney's laundress quarters of 1872 were cement and stone with shingle roofs, built for three families. In 1887 the post surgeon condemned the laundress housing then in use for poisonous sanitary conditions. By then the women had lost official standing, when their ration authority lapsed on June 18, 1883.

What the plaque says

Fort Sidney Sidney Barracks, when established in 1867, was a temporary camp with one permanent structure, a blockhouse located to the north. In 1869 the Fort was relocated at this site and in 1870 the name was officially changed to Fort Sidney. The primary service of the Fort was in protecting construction crews from hostile Indians while building the Union Pacific. Fort Sidney became a major strategic point on the Plains in the mid-1870's. With the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, the town of Sidney and the Fort became the major supply point. The trail to Fort Robinson and the Black Hills was of strategic importance during the Indian troubles of 1874-1877 in serving freight wagons and stage coaches. At the same time, Sidney was an important trail town and railhead in the picturesque cattle business of the Old West. The last Indian alarm at Fort Sidney was the most dramatic. In 1878 the Cheyenne, under Dull Knife, broke from their reservation in Oklahoma and staged an epic flight across Kansas and Nebraska. A special train was kept ready at Sidney to be rushed either way to intercept the Indians when they came to the Union Pacific. On October 4 the train was rushed to Ogallala, but the Indians escaped into the Sandhills. The post closed in 1894 and the buildings were sold in 1899. Sidney Kiwanis Club Historical Land Mark Council

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Sidney — 0.2 mi
  Three surviving buildings of the post that guarded the Union Pacific at Sidney from 1867 to 1894, where a young army surgeon named Walter Reed found a ward full of ugly cases.

More markers nearby

• Nebraska's Earliest Documented Burial — 0.9 mi
• Sidney-Black Hills Trail — 1.6 mi
• Sidney-Cheyenne County — 3.1 mi
• Cheyenne County — 3.2 mi