Fort Robinson State Park comprises more than 22,000 acres of exquisite Pine Ridge scenery with its own bison and longhorn herds.
Many of the fort’s original buildings survive and remain in use at the park today, and others have been reconstructed. Aside from its place in history as the location of Crazy Horse’s killing, Fort Robinson was also the site of the tragic Cheyenne Breakout in 1879. Over the years, the fort served the Red Cloud Indian Agency, was a cavalry remount station, K-9 dog training center, POW camp and beef research station. It was established as a state park in 1962.
Longtime Fort Robinson Museum curator Tom Buecker used to say that the most common question he heard was, “Where’s the fort?” Visitors expect to see a stockade, but like most Great Plains forts of its era, Fort Robinson was built without outer walls. It started as a tent camp 150 years ago and grew to become one of the largest military installations on the northern Plains.
The Army sent more than 900 soldiers from Fort Laramie to northwestern Nebraska in March 1874. Their tent camp was soon named in honor of Lt. Levi Robinson, who had been killed earlier that year by Native Americans from nearby Red Cloud Agency. The first post commander was Captain Arthur MacArthur — the father of Gen. Douglas MacArthur of World War II fame.
The soldiers had come to protect Red Cloud Agency, where the U.S. government distributed annuity goods to Lakotas in fulfillment of an earlier treaty. Tensions were mounting as Lakotas resented continued encroachments into their territory.
Later that year, Lt. Col. George Custer led an expedition that confirmed rumors of gold in the nearby Black Hills. When the Lakotas refused to sell the land, the U.S. launched what became known as the Great Sioux War of 1876.
Following the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the harsh winter of 1876/7 Crazy Horse began to realize that the US Army would never desist in its pursuit and persecution of his free roaming Oglala band. Without safe shelter and sufficient food to survive another winter it was clear to him that it was no longer in the best interests of his people to ignore the obvious, and that there was no other choice than to accept reservation life.
Dubbed a “surrender” by the US military, but reported as a proud procession of the undefeated by those who witnessed it, Crazy Horse’s people were escorted into Fort Robinson, NE by his one-time brother-in-arms turned Indian Policeman American Horse. Four months later, on September 5, 1877, Crazy Horse was dead, killed by the stab of a bayonet whilst resisting arrest and incarceration in the fort’s guardhouse. Today you can stand on the exact spot of that killing and reflect on the life and times of an exceptional personality.
The following year saw another tragedy at the post, this time involving a group of Northern Cheyenne who had escaped from their reservation in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) and were trying to return to their homeland in present-day Montana. The army captured Chief Dull Knife and 149 of his followers and locked them in a barracks without food or fuel, hoping to pressure them to agree to go back to the reservation.
On the night of Jan. 9, 1879, the Cheyennes broke out of the barracks and, using weapons they had hidden, shot the guards and held off the other soldiers in a running fight known as the Cheyenne Breakout. Most of the Cheyennes were recaptured or killed.
While some of the buildings from that early era remain, others — such as the guardhouse and the Cheyenne Breakout barracks — have been reconstructed on site based on archeological excavations. Today, it’s common to see bundles of sage left by Lakota visitors on the Crazy Horse marker in front of the guardhouse. And every January, the Northern Cheyenne hold a ceremony at the Fort to honor their ancestors.
These stories and photos provide a glimpse of the Fort’s earliest years, but barely scratch the surface of its long history. Fort Robinson was home to African American “Buffalo Soldier” regiments in the 1880s and 1890s, trained cavalry horses as an Army Remount Depot following World War I, and became a prisoner of war camp and war dog training center in World War II. Today, Fort Robinson is a popular state historical park where visitors enjoy the outdoors while experiencing many layers of the past.