Fort Abraham Lincoln - History

History

The Mandan Indian tribe established a village at the confluence of the Missouri and Heart Rivers in about 1575. They built earthlodges and thrived in their community by hunting bison and growing a number of crops. Two hundred years later, an outbreak of smallpox caused the Mandan population to significantly decrease. The Mandan resettled, and in the 1870s the area along the west banks of the Missouri, the same location where the Mandan tribe had established their village, a military post was built in June 1872 by two companies of the 6th U.S. Infantry under Lt. Col. Daniel Huston, Jr. as Fort McKeen, opposite Bismarck, Dakota Territory.

The three-company infantry post's name was changed to Fort Abraham Lincoln on November 19, 1872, and expanded to the south to include a cavalry post accommodating six companies. Among the 78 permanent wooden structures at Fort Lincoln were a post office, telegraph office, barracks for nine companies, seven officer’s quarters, six cavalry stables, a guardhouse, granary, quartermaster storehouse, bakery, hospital, laundress quarters, and log scouts' quarters. Water was supplied to the fort by hauling it from Missouri River in wagons, while wood was supplied by contract.

By 1873, the 7th Cavalry moved into the fort to ensure the expansion of the Northern Pacific Railway. The first post commander of the expanded fort was Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer, who held the position until his death in 1876.

In 1876, the Army departed from here as part of the Great Sioux War of 1876-77, resulting in Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer's defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where they were to push the non-treaty Indians back to their particular reservations. Custer along with about half of his troops did not return to Fort Lincoln. The Fort was abandoned in 1891 after the completion of the railroad to Montana in 1883. A year after the fort was abandoned; local residents disassembled the fort for its nails and wood. In 1895, a new Fort Lincoln was built across the river near Bismarck.

In 1934, the Civilian Conservation Corps built a visitor center, shelters, and roads. They also reconstructed military blockhouses and placed cornerstones to mark where fort buildings once stood, as well as replicating Mandan earthen lodges. Additional reproductions have since been built on the site creating a replica Mandan village, called "On-a-Slant Village." A reproduction of Custer's house was built in the park in 1989, in time for the state of North Dakota's centennial. The park also includes a campground and picnic area.

In 1941, the fort was converted into an internment camp for German prisoners of war and U.S. citizens of Japanese and German descent. Fort Lincoln held up to 3,600 prisoners.