Fort Robinson State Park

We had a leisurely morning yesterday. Although we'd planned to visit two sites, Fort Robinson, and the Toadstool Geologic Park, we ended up bailing on the second one. After doing some reading, I realized it meant traveling a significant distance on a gravel road, and we weren't up for that. We've visited other sites that required traveling gravel roads, and after a certain distance, it becomes too punishing. It meant we had a little more time to relax in the morning. Sadie snuggled up in one of the quilts.

Smitty relaxed on his catio.

I relaxed with some slow-stitching. I've moved my hoop to the next section, and I'm estimating it's about 1/3 finished.

Eventually, we headed west through the towns of Chadron and Crawford. Along the way, we got some good looks at the Pine Ridge Escarpment. It extends more than 100 miles between the Niobrara River and the White River in far northwestern Nebraska. A small section extends into South Dakota. The high tableland between the rivers has been eroded into a region of forested buttes, ridges and canyons.

It was about a half hour drive to reach the state park.

We were disappointed to find all the structures here closed for the season. There were a few seasonal visitors and a few people working in the gift shop. Otherwise, the place was abandoned and buildings locked up. There was no one we could ask questions of, and so I'm afraid my information about this place is limited to what we could read on the signs. 

It helps to understand that Fort Robinson served many purposes during its heyday. It was a former U.S. Army fort and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1960. It is part of the Fort Robinson and Red Cloud Agency historic district. Included are Fort Robinson and the site of the second Red Cloud Agency (about 1.5 mi [2.4 km] to the east). The district also includes the Camp Camby site and the 1886 Percy Homestead. In 1919 at the end of World War I, Fort Robinson became the world's largest quartermaster remount depot. It was used as a breeding and training center for horses and mules for the military. In addition, stallions owned by the military were used to breed with local stock to improve it. During World War II, the fort was the site of a K-9 corps training center and a German prisoner-of-war camp.

This was the first structure we came to.

Seasonal visitors can rent rooms here, and there is a dining room on the main floor.

There were only two visitors to the restaurant during our visit. It looks as if they may have been sitting here since the Fort's inception. That's some slow service.

Back outside, we walked out onto the parade grounds. There were two monuments there, this one to Chief Crazy Horse. The other was to the park's namesake, Lt. Levi H. Robinson, who had been killed by Indians while on Indian land just a few months before the fort opened.

As we've been visiting these historic landmarks in the Great Plains region, we've been gratified to see how each park has treated the history of the Native Americans with dignity and respect.

Moving on...

Reaching this structure, we realized that all the buildings were closed and locked. We were invited to peer in windows, however. That method has only limited success, as you'll see.

 

Turning directly around from that spot, we could see the flagstaff.

Note the rope ladder there where the bugler climbed the staff to play reveille.

Driving on around the square, we came to this structure.

It has a brand new cedar shingle roof. 

In our experience, boxelder beetles are attracted to cedar. We have them at our place too, and they are the most annoying bugs! They fly into the cedar shingles in the fall to live during the cold winter, then fly out again in the spring. During these times of transition, they are thick outside...flying around and generally making a nuisance of themselves. They do no harm, except to the "ick" portion of one's brain. Here's a picture I took of our house several years back.

So all of that to say that the boxelder beetles were clearly excited about this brand new cedar shingle roof. They may have already been in the roofing shingles as they were being laid down. And this roof looks to have been laid within the past couple of weeks. They were coating the adobe bricks on the walls and flying all around.

I took just enough time here to place my camera lens against the windows to take a picture of the interior. This one from the front door...

This one from the windows to the right. This appears to be a parlor or a living room.

Moving a little more to the right...

Even farther to the right was a bedroom.

From there, I brushed off any hitchhikers and ran for my life back to the truck.

We drove to the other side of the fort...it's a HUGE expanse of buildings, fields, and corrals. On the far side of the field was this sign. There was no associated structure.

And this one. We surmise these were the original buildings of the fort before it's function was expanded after World War I.

Here was one of the guard houses.

Peering inside, I could see this:

At all the historic forts we've visited, most of the original buildings are gone, and only a few foundation stones remain to show their locations.

This one was accompanied by this sign:

To my left were two more structures.

Turning around, I could see some of the more modern barracks on the far side of the field. To the left of the image was a monument showing the exact location where Chief Crazy Horse was killed.

Adjacent to those structures was this Veterinary Hospital. It would have been used to care for the horses and dogs who were bred and trained here.

Beyond were some stables that would have served as the horse "hospital." There were other huge brick structures for stabling horses.

We'd seen most all of the structures by that time. There was a 6-mile scenic drive we might have taken, but it too was closed for the season. Instead, we took a dirt road past the fort, coming to this fishing pond.

We were amused by this line of geese following the leader in a straight line toward the pond's edge.

From there, we headed back to the RV. We needed to pick up a few things at a grocery store, but spent the rest of the day relaxing.

We're moving on to our last planned stop in South Dakota. It's a drive of just over 160 miles...one of the shorter drives of the trip. We'll do a little sight-seeing here, and then we'll be making a beeline for home. We'll be there by the 18th. Since we can't check into the park in South Dakota until 3:00 p.m., we're spending most of our day right where we are. We have until 1:00 p.m. to check out. We'll get Smitty out for another walk, and we'll do a little walking ourselves. We've spent almost no time here at the park, although our campsite has been so nice, we haven't felt a need to do anything else during the time we are here.

So it's time for breakfast, and I'll do some slow-stitching, and then we'll make ourselves presentable for a little morning stroll, both with Smitty, and without.