Historic Fort at Missoula May Be Abandoned Soon

Last of a long line of military establishments which have guarded the advance of civilization in Montana, Fort Missoula, located on the outskirts of this city, has been recommended by the War department for abandonment.

It is now the only active military post between Fort Snelling, Minn., and Fort George Wright, Wash.  Fourteen officers and 300 men, a battalion of the Fourth Infantry, under command of Lt. Col. William J. O'Laughlin, are now there.

Montana's first military post was established in 1866 in the Big Horn valley by Lt. N.C. Kinney and two companies of infantry from Fort Phil Kearney.  It was called Fort C.F. Smith and was burned by Indians in 1868.

The second establishment was Fort Ellis, established in 1867 by order of President Jackson and abandoned in 1886.

Succeeding posts were:

Camp Cook first permanent military camp in Montana territory established on the bank of the Missouri river at the mouth of the Judith and garrisoned by the first battalion of the 13th infantry, under Major Clinton.  It was designed to control Blackfeet and Sioux uprising.

Fort Buford, across the river a mile and a half below the old trading post at Fort Union, erected in 1866 by Col. Rankin, who was killed 11 months later by Indians who captured the fort.

Fort Parker, build in 1868 by Col. Black about 35 miles from the present city of Bozeman and burned in 1872.

Fort Thomas Francis Meagher, established in 1872, three miles below Yellowstone canyon.

Fort Pease, on the Yellowstone evacuated in 1876 and burned by Indians the following year.

Fort Benton, a trading post of the American Fur Company, taken for military purposes about 1869 and maintained as a supply center for forts of the territory until the end of navigation on the Missouri in the late eighties.

Camp Logan, first established as a cantonment in 1869 on Deep creek to protect miners of Diamond City and Confederate gulch.

Fort Keogh, west of Miles City, established in 1877 under direction of General Nelson A. Miles.

Fort Custer, built after the battle of the Little Big Horn, at the junction of the Custer and Big Horn rivers at a cost reported to have been $1,000,000.

Fort Assiniboine, built in 1879 southwest of Havre, for protection against roving Indians along the Canadian border.

Fort Maginnis, established in 1883, near the Granville Stuart ranch on Fort creek, near the Judith mountains.

Fort William Henry Harrison, established near Helena in the nineties.

Fort Shaw, on the Sun River about 25 miles from its mouth, established in 1867.

Several of these old military reservations, abandoned by the war department, have been put to other public use.  Fort Harrison is a veterans bureau hospital and part of the grounds are utilized by the permanent summer camp of the Montana national guard.

Fort Assinboine, described as the largest and finest post ever built in the West, was given to the State for establishment of an agricultural school and has been used by Montana State college for one of its experimental stations.  The school contemplated by the transfer came into being two years ago as the North Montana Agricultural and Manual Training school, but its campus will be located on a tract of land nearer the city.

Fort Keogh is used as a livestock and range experimental station by the State College and a part of its land and game department to create a warm water cultural station by the state, raising fish.

Fort Shaw was relinquished to the Indian bureau for school purposes in 1892.