Wagon Box Fight Anniversary Program to be held on August 2

On a hot August day in 1867, 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.

On August 2nd, 2023, at 10 a.m., there will be a presentation titled, “They Surrounded the White Tents“, to commemorate the battle. The event will be held at the Wagon Box Fight Historic Site, on Wagon Box Road, Story.

A stone monument was erected in 1936 by the Civilian Conservation Corps at the site of the Wagon Box Fight, about three miles northwest of Fort Phil Kearny.