T - 5 Days and counting....

For those of you who are interested, here are excerpts from an article I wrote about Fort Hartsuff for an other organizations newsletter.

Fort Hartsuff is located near the center of Nebraska in the beautiful North Loup River Valley between the present day towns of Ord and Burwell. Fort Hartsuff was established in 1874 on the site chosen for it by General E.O.C. Ord, the Department of the Platte Commander. Members of Co."C" 9th infantry started construction in early September, but were transferred to Fort Laramie in April 1875 before they could complete the fort. CO. "A" 23rd Infantry completed the construction by early 1876. As was the official Army policy in the mid-70s, Fort Hartsuff was built from materials that were available locally. With a generous supply of gravel and lime in the area, concrete walls were called for. Trees from a cedar filled canyon 6 miles up river provided the lumber and shingles. Originally the plans called for a 2-company fort, with a company of infantry and a troop of cavalry manning the garrison. However, before the construction could be completed the fort was downsized to a single company of infantry. During its life, Fort Hartsuff housed men from Co."C" 9th Infantry, Co. "A" 23rd Infantry, and Co.'s "I" and "K" 14th Infantry. The primary duties of the men of Fort Hartsuff were to stop the miners using the Grand Island (Nebraska) to Deadwood (South Dakota) road and to check the flow of war parties between the Sioux reservation and the Pawnee reservation and back. Company "C" of the 9th was again posted here when the fort was abandoned in 1881. Following its abandonment the Union Pacific Railroad was given title to Fort Hartsuff but sold it when it was decided to build the tracks on the south side of the river. From that time until 1962, the buildings of Fort Hartsuff served as a farm headquarters. In 1962 Dr. Glen Auble donated the 20 acres that the fort sits on to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission to be used as a state historical park. 13 years later Roy Lindsay was appointed Park Superintendent and the major restoration of the buildings began. Restoration continues at Fort Hartsuff SHP and is currently about 95% complete. "Captain" Lindsay officially started the living history program at Fort Hartsuff State Historical Park in the early 80s with himself and a couple of other men and a handful of hand-me-down Civil War look-alike uniforms. In the mid 80's Fort Hartsuff hosted a couple of the General Miles Marching and Chowder Society encampments. The exchange of information sparked a decided improvement in the living history program at the fort and many M1874 uniforms were purchased from the Quartermaster Shop. This is where I came in.
Through the 90's we have continually striven to improve our impressions as well as the entire program. Our Volunteers can currently animate nearly every building on the post with skilled craftsmen such as wagoneers, carpenters, bakers, saddlers and the like. The year 2000 witnessed probably our best year (so far) for living history at the fort. We held several special events to celebrate the summer holidays and hosted our first encampment in September of 2000. Our feminine volunteers take great pride in the historical accuracy of their dresses and a local seamstress produces highly accurate uniforms for our soldiers. We hope to continue to improve our impressions through contact with other living history groups. In September of 2005 year Park Assistant Superintendent, Jim Domeier and I traveled to Lubbock Texas to retrieve a restored original U.S. Army ambulance that the park will use in it’s living history program.
We feel that contact with other living history groups is one of the most important tools we have for improvement in our program.