Military Road Crossing

The fort at the far end of this road was renamed in February 1876 for Maj. Joel A. Elliott, killed at the Washita in 1868. Lumber for its frame buildings came by wagon 196 miles from Dodge City, while stables and storehouses went up in cottonwood, adobe and thatch. Black companies of the 10th Cavalry, 24th Infantry and 9th Cavalry served there, and from November 1881 to February 1884 every soldier at the post was Black. The officers were white except Lt. Henry O. Flipper, West Point's first Black graduate. The army left in 1890.

What the plaque says

Military Road Crossing Here, between 1874 and 1890, supply wagons, a daily stage coach and the U.S. Mail moved over this earliest known trail from Dodge City, Kansas to Fort Elliott, Texas. The fort, first known as "Cantonment on Sweet- water" was established after the Kiowa, Comanche and Cheyenne attack on Adobe Walls in June of 1874. Oklahoma Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Alabaster Caverns State Park — 26 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

• Fort Supply — 2.2 mi
• No Man's Land — 23 mi