1st Stop: Fort Larned, Kansas

NOTE: This is the 1^st of a multi-part series chronicling my family's two week vacation in the summer of 2010.

For links to the entire series, click here.

Because my oldest daughter will be 18 and graduate high school next year, we wanted to see and do as much as possible on what may have been our last opportunity to vacation together as a family. Therefore, I tried to plan our route so that one day of driving would bring us to something interesting to see or visit. It just so happened that Fort Larned National Historic Site in Kansas was about 600 miles, or one day's drive, from home.

"Some could say Fort Larned acted as a buffer between the white man and Plains Indian Tribes inhabiting the prairie region of the United States.

Its job began with protecting the U.S. Mail along the Santa Fe Trail. Traffic on the Santa Fe Trail began to decrease in the late 1850’s and early 1860’s but increased after the Civil War. In the late 1860's settlers, ranchers, and farmers came to this area to start a new life for themselves, disrupting the hunting grounds of the various tribes in the area led to many confrontations.

...Read more at the National Park Service website

Our plan was to drive the 600 miles, camp in a little parking area at the entrance to the fort, and tour the fort early the next day. A couple of things caused us to alter those plans.

First, the temperature in central Kansas was hovering near 100⁰ when we arrived around 4:30 that afternoon. Second, the parking area I'd seen on Google Earth was inside the gate of the Fort, a gate that closed before dark.

So we decided to tour the fort that afternoon and drive a little further to find a place to camp. Our atlas revealed Webster State Park lay a couple of hours north along the route we planned to take the next day. The park had campgrounds alongside Webster Reservoir and looked inviting.

We'll take a look at Fort Larned, then move on to describe our camping experience at Webster State Park.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this fort along the old Santa Fe Trail is that it had no walls. Playing back all the old western movies I've seen that showed forts, they were all characterized by a wall. But this fort was built inside a bend of the Pawnee River, providing a natural defense against attack on 3 sides. A low berm was constructed along the fourth side, facing the open prairie, which would provide a defilade position for troops to defend the fort in the event of attack.

The buildings are arranged in a square surrounding a large, open parade ground. The buildings' stone walls appear approximately 24 inches thick, broken by firing ports/windows every few feet. Another surprise awaited us as we stepped out of the scorching Kansas sun and into the various buildings of the fort. Though the buildings lacked air conditioning, it was shockingly cool inside each of the buildings we explored. Those firing ports served a dual purpose, to ventilate the edifices utilizing the seemingly constant stiff breeze blowing across the prairie.

In several of the buildings, volunteers dressed in frontier garb served as park interpreters. Friendly and welcoming, they described the purpose and history of the buildings they manned to give the fort a sort of lived-in feel. These wonderful folks helped me accomplish one of my secondary missions of this vacation, which was to expand my daughters' education of American history.

Fort Larned proved an extremely interesting place to visit. A fort that is almost restored to its frontier state, it gives visitors a unique look at the daily living conditions of US soldiers who protected settlers seeking their fortunes in the old west. Here are some photos so you can get a peek at this piece of American history.

NOTE: Some of the pictures in this album have a date stamp of 2039. That's because my daughter had the date on her camera set incorrectly. We didn't travel into the future, just the settings on her camera were off.

The Barracks

Volunteers in the enlisted barracks

18th Century enlisted infantry uniforms

18th Century entertainment system

Fort hospital

No private rooms here

Hospital latrine

Bathtub

Pharmacy

Inside the Block House (Stockade)

I don't know what one had to do to be sentenced to time in this box, but it must have been bad. There was only enough room to stand. You couldn't kneel, crouch, sit, or even squat. The box was just outside the block house in the blazing hot Kansas sun. I doubt seriously crimes punished in this manner were oft repeated.

Buildings and Grounds

Parade Ground

School/Library

Single Officers' Quarters (Being Renovated)

Welcome Center & Hospital

Storehouse

Inside the store

Married Officers' Quarters & Commander's Quarters

The building on the left is the married officers' quarters and the one on the right is the post commander's quarters.

Though we arrived about 4:00, the staff and volunteers stayed past their 4:30 closing time so we could explore the fort. If you have any interest in the history of the American West, or the Army, Fort Larned National Historic Site provides an interesting and enjoyable stop on a trip through central Kansas. To top it all, there's no admission fee.

I would suggest arriving earlier in the day than we did, so you explore the fort without feeling the need to rush.

We left Fort Larned after it closed and drove on to Webster State Park. We camped that night and left the next morning headed for Rapid City, SD. My next post will describe our day in the Black Hills of South Dakota.