Officers' Row, 1909

After 1949 these houses held the staff of a research station. The USDA Beef Cattle Research Station here studied heterosis, the extra vigor of crossbred cattle, and its estimates were among the first data to measure the benefits of crossbreeding. Geneticist Jim Wiltbank, who moved his family here from Beltsville, Maryland, in 1958, worked with colleagues on the age at which heifers of different breeds reach puberty and on target weights at breeding still cited today. Graduate students came through a University of Nebraska and Montana State agreement. In 1971 the trials moved to Clay Center.

What the plaque says

Officers' Row, 1909 Consisting of four double sets and one single occupancy dwelling for the post commander, these were the last officers' homes constructed at Fort Robinson. They represent the culmination of Victorian military architecture, with fancy fireplaces and bell systems to summon servants. After the military abandoned the fort in 1948, the quarters provided housing for employees of the USDA Beef Cattle Research Station, and have more recently been used as state park visitor accommodations by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. Nebraska State Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Robinson State Park — 0.3 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 — 14 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

• Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Robinson — steps away
• 1887 Barracks Row — 0.3 mi
• Adobe Officers' Quarters — 0.3 mi
• Flagstaff, 1890 — 0.3 mi