The Military on the Prairie

A Building at Historic Fort Hays

The common conception of soldiers being sent to the prairie to protect settlers is not entirely accurate.  The motivation had a more commercial aspect.  Historic Fort Hays is a good example.  The Fort was established in 1867 to protect construction workers that were building the Union Pacific Railroad.  The Government saw the importance of railroads to link the large territory which the fledgling nation was seeking to populate. The Native Americans saw the encroaching railroads as a threat to their way of life.  They sought to interfere by tearing up the tracks and attacking those constructing the tracks.  The government sent the soldiers to protect workers and property.

Of course, the investors paying for the railroads were counting on settlers traveling West on their trains and shipping produce on those trains back to the East.  However, those settlers followed the arrival of the trains, arriving well after the soldiers came.

Silhouettes mark Sites

By the time settlers were arriving, the soldiers at the forts were already being deployed elsewhere, and when Isaac Werner arrived at Larned in 1878, most of the soldiers at the nearby fort were gone or soon would be.  The quadrangle at Fort Larned was converted to civilian use for a time, but it is now a historic site well worth visiting, along with the Santa Fe trail historic site nearby.

Returning to exploring Historic Fort Hays, there is a great deal to see.  The grounds document pioneer and military history with placards and exhibits along the walkways.

In addition, at nearby Victoria nine miles to the east of Hays on Highway 40, at the south edge of Victoria may be seen the Victoria Railroad Cemetery, with the graves of Union Pacific railroad workers killed by the Cheyenne Indians in 1867.  Of course, this also evidences why soldiers were posted at Fort Hays to protect those workers against further attacks by the Native Americans combatting the threat to their way of life.

Plaques share information

By the time a train carried Isaac to Kansas in 1878, the railroads were serving the purposes for which they were built--to bring settlers to the Prairie and to ship what those settlers produced to cities in the East.

If you visit Historic Fort Hays, located on US 183 Alternate just four miles south of Interstate 70, you can see the original blockhouse, guardhouse, and officers quarters. 

You may click on the images to enlarge them, and you may learn more about Historic Fort Hays at http://hays.adnews.net/oldforthays.hrml. 

Earthen Prairie Homes

Isaac described the sandy loam soil of his claims as "light blow-sand," a description that would seem to indicate soil incapable of holding together in the rectangles of sod used to build homes or of supporting cave-like dugout walls and roof, yet these structures are well documented in his community.  It was obviously the mat of prairie grasses with their strong, dense roots that held the soil together for use in construction of the rude homes built by settlers.  The sod having been stripped from the soil long ago, we find it hard today to imagine the sturdy earthen structures of our ancestors.

 

 

When Isaac resumed writing in his diary in 1884, he had lived on the Kansas prairie for six years.  By then he had built a wooden house of two stories with a basement room and a cellar for storing his potatoes, grains, and garden produce like melons, turnips, and peanuts.  However, in his early years on the prairie he lived in dugouts.  His journal mentions two different dugouts, abandoned by 1884.

 

 

His wooden house was atypical among his nearest neighbors.  Brothers Will and Felix Goodwin living just to the south of him across the Stafford-Pratt County line lived in a dugout.  Will had a small dugout, and when Felix joined him in 1884, Isaac "staked off Will Goodwin's new residence" and commenced fitting on Will Goodwin's side boards...hanging door, making table..." and finally "set roof on Will Goodwin's new dugout," completing the larger dugout to accomodate both brothers.  In 1885 when Jesse Green's family moved to the claim just to the east of Isaac, they built a soddy, and Isaac went to Larned with Jesse to buy the Iron Board Roofing Paper to finish the soddy's roof.  That same year Isabel Ross staked her claim just east of Isaac's timber claim.  Isaac met with her to discuss building her soddy, but "so much advising and different architecture about, I glad to escape the job."  Tousley became her contractor, but Isaac worked on building her soddy, from top to bottom--staking the dimensions, making the door and window frames, shingling the roof, and digging her well.  George and Nancy Henn lived in a soddy just to the north of Isaac's timber claim, and Persis Vosburgh, another single woman whose homestead was just to the west of Isaac's claim, lived in a dugout. 

There were wooden houses in the community, but Isaac's closest neighbors, as well as many other early homesteaders who arrived on the treeless prairie, took advantage of the materials at hand to build their earthen homes. 

The images used in this post are from the collection of Old Stafford County Pictures at the Stafford County Historical and Genealogy Society, available on CD at the museum.

The Santa Fe Trail Center near Larned, Kansas, has recreated both a dugout and a sod house for visitors to experience what living in these prairie homes was like.  Visit the Santa Fe Trail Center on facebook or see http://www.santafetrailcenter.org/. 

Remember to click on the images for larger viewing.