Upcoming Events at Fort Phil Kearny

Two events are planned at Fort Phil Kearny the first two days in August. The first is the Pilot Knob hike on Thursday, August 1, at 6:30 p.m. Pilots Knob is the hill where the lookouts were posted with flags, and they could communicate with different signals to let the commander at the fort know what was happening. From the top of the hill the scouts could see for 13 miles.

They could see a wagon train on the Bozeman Trail heading to the fort and see the wood detail on Piney Island. They could let the commander know if there was an attack happening around the fort, and to send out reinforcements. There was a platform on the Post commander’s headquarters which gave the commander a good view of pilot knob, and the signal flags.

On Friday, August 2 at 10 am the Fort Phil Kearny/Bozeman Trail Association will present, The Road to August 2, 1867 – the Wagon Box Anniversary program with Donovin Sprague and Dave McKee.

The Wagon Box Fight took place on a hot August Day in 1867, when twenty-six soldiers and six civilians were attacked by several hundred Sioux warriors when their party was sent out from Fort Phil Kearny to cut wood.

Although out-numbered by the Sioux, the soldiers formed a defensive wall of the wooden wagon boxes to protect them, and they were armed with the new breech-loading Springfield Model 1866 rifles and lever-action Henry rifles.

The soldiers held off the attack for several hours, while the sun rose higher in the sky and beat down on them within the circle of wagons. At 2 p.m., a relief party from the fort rode in and Indians retreated. Due to the barricade created by the wagon boxes, there were fewer causalities than might have been expected.

The Wagon Box Fight, as it came to be called, was the last major battle between the U.S. Army and Lakota warriors along the Bozeman Trail in Wyoming.

Each year the FPK/BTA remembers the battle, and this year Dave McKee, historian and President of FPK/BTA, talks about the soliders story of the fight, and Donovin Sprague, Miniconjou Lakota historian and author, will tell the Native American side of the battle, as well as the events leading up to the battle.

The program will take place at the Wagon Box Fight Site near Story. Attendees are encouraged to bring lawn chairs.

Contact Fort Phil Kearny 307-684-7629 for more information. Regular site fees apply.