Fort Supply

The sign stops at 1894, but the grounds kept working. Camp Supply briefly held the Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency in 1868 and again in 1870, and it served as a supply depot for army operations during the Red River War of 1874-75. After the army left, the post passed to the Department of the Interior on February 26, 1895. In May 1908 the first patients arrived at Western Oklahoma Hospital, the state's first mental health facility, set up in the old post's buildings. Western State Psychiatric Center and William S. Key Correctional Center also occupy the grounds.

What the plaque says

Fort Supply Camp Supply was established in November 1868 to support efforts by the U.S. military to engage and subjugate American Indian tribes in the southern Great Plains. It served as a forward base for the devastating attack by the 7th Cavalry against the village of Southern Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle on the Washita River on November 27, 1868. The post was designated Fort Supply in December 1878 in recognition of its important strategic position in a region without railroads. It sustained several companies of infantry and cavalry, including African American soldiers of the 10th Cavalry and 24th Infantry. Many civilians lived and worked at the post as well. Soldiers and civilians clashed with Native peoples while policing the Cheyenne and Arapaho Reservation and the Cherokee Outlet. Soldiers also expelled squatters, arrested thieves and smugglers, and escorted cattle drives and survey crews. In 1892, soldiers from Fort Supply oversaw the opening of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Reservation to settlement. They supervised the opening of the Cherokee Outlet one year later. Initially consisting of a wood stockade, Fort Supply contained almost one hundred buildings when it closed in September 1894. The site was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Alabaster Caverns State Park — 24 mi
  A three-quarter-mile gypsum cave under Cedar Canyon near Freedom, with selenite, rare black alabaster, five kinds of bats and a past as a 1950s fallout shelter.

More markers nearby

• Military Road Crossing — 2.2 mi
• No Man's Land — 25 mi