Tour Fort Phil Kearny in a Horse-Drawn Covered Wagon

The first Golden Hour Covered Wagon Tour at Fort Phil Kearny was held on Sunday, July 26. Tours had been scheduled earlier in July, but due to the extreme heat, the tours were rescheduled and set later in the day.

Ashlee Kintzler, owner of the Moon Hitch Covered Wagon tours, introduced herself and her helpers to the group who came on the first tour.

This gave guests an opportunity to take a step back in time and explore Fort Phil Kearny from the seat of a covered wagon as the guides bring history to life. One of the guides was site superintendent Shari Shada. She talked about some of the people who were at the Fort during the Plains Indian wars. One was a Philadelphia photograph named Ridgeway Glover. He was hired by Frank Leslie‘s Illustrated weekly and the Smithsonian to photograph the Indians and the west.

His photos can be seen on-line, but Shada said that when he got to Fort Phil Kearny, he was having trouble with his camera, and if he took any photos of Fort Phil Kearny, they did not survive.

There were two stories about how he was killed. One story was that he was killed instantly with a shot to the heart, and the other was a much more gruesome story of mutilation and decapitation. He was buried in the cemetery at Fort Phil Kearny, which was the first stop on the wagon tour.

At the cemetery, the guests left the wagon to hear about the fort cemetery. Shada talked about the Fetterman Fight dead and when they were buried, many who were unidentified and buried in a mass grave.

She said when they exhumed the bodies in 1888 to move then to the Custer Battlefield Cemetery, there was an eyewitness who reported that

One interesting part of the talk was when Shada pointed out several marking flags on the ground, saying that those were markers where specially trained dogs that can smell human composition found evidence of human burials. The dogs can smell the gases that are trapped in the ground from the remains of those who had been buried there, even hundreds of years later.

After the cemetery stop, the guests loaded in the wagon again to continue the journey back to the fort, stopping along the way at the site of the old sawmill that served the fort.

Arriving back at the fort, Ashlee Kintzler had this to say about the first tour of the fort area.

Allyson Harvey from Ranchester was one of the guests on the wagon ride and had this to say.

The Golden Hour tours give one the unique experience of seeing the fort from a wagon and giving one the authentic feel of what it must have been like to travel in 1866. However, the Moon Hitch Covered Wagon does have cushions on the wooden seats for extra comfort.

There is still space available on upcoming tours, but seating is limited and tickets must be purchased ahead of time.

Please click HERE for more info or to book your tour!