Fort McDermit (or Fort McDermitt) was an

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

fort A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

. It was established on August 14, 1865, by

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

J. C. Doughty, of Company I of the

2nd Regiment California Volunteer Cavalry The 2nd Regiment California Volunteer Cavalry was a cavalry regiment in the Union Army during the American Civil War. It spent its entire term of service in the western United States, with most of its companies dispersed to various posts. History ...

, on orders of Lt. Col. Charles McDermit, Commander, Military District Nevada, as the Quinn River Camp No. 33. It was located near Quinn River Station on the East Fork of the

Quinn River The Quinn River, once known as the Queen River, is an intermittent river, approximately long, in the desert of northwestern Nevada in the United States. It drains an enclosed basin inside the larger Great Basin. It rises in northeastern Humbold ...

. Attacks on white settlements in the early part of the

Snake War Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints ...

prompted the

District of Utah During the American Civil War in the early 1860s, the District of Utah was a subordinate district of the U.S. Army's Department of the Pacific. The district was composed of territorial areas that later became parts of the modern U.S. states of Ida ...

to establish a detachment at the

stagecoach A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are draw ...

station called Quinn (or Queen) River Station. The volunteer

cavalry Historically, cavalry (from the French word ''cavalerie'', itself derived from "cheval" meaning "horse") are soldiers or warriors who fight mounted on horseback. Cavalry were the most mobile of the combat arms, operating as light cavalry ...

detachment was there in order to protect the stagecoach line that ran between

Winnemucca, Nevada Winnemucca () is the only incorporated city in, and is the county seat of, Humboldt County, Nevada, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 8,431, up 14.0 percent from the 2010 census figure of 7,396. Intersta ...

and

Silver City, Idaho Silver City is a ghost town in northwestern Owyhee County, Idaho, United States, that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). At its height in the 1880s, it was a gold and silver mining town with a population of around 2,500 ...

Territory. McDermit's death in an ambush on August 7, 1865, along the Quinn River near the station and the continuing unrest, provoked the establishment of a stronger force and the fort was named in his honor. Fort McDermit was intended to hold a

garrison A garrison (from the French ''garnison'', itself from the verb ''garnir'', "to equip") is any body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it. The term now often applies to certain facilities that constitute a mil ...

of two companies one of cavalry and one of

infantry Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and marine i ...

. It was built around a rectangular parade ground measuring . Its permanent structures were first erected in 1866 and 1867 and consisted of three buildings for officers, a large

barracks Barracks are usually a group of long buildings built to house military personnel or laborers. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word "barraca" ("soldier's tent"), but today barracks are u ...

, a three-room

hospital A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment with specialized health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically has an emerge ...

, storehouses (for supplies to keep the fort running for six months), and

stable A stable is a building in which livestock, especially horses, are kept. It most commonly means a building that is divided into separate stalls for individual animals and livestock. There are many different types of stables in use today; the ...

s all surrounding a square. All of the post buildings were one story with

shingle roof Roof shingles are a roof covering consisting of individual overlapping elements. These elements are typically flat, rectangular shapes laid in courses from the bottom edge of the roof up, with each successive course overlapping the joints below. ...

s built of

adobe Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for ''mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of e ...

, stone, or frame construction. Additional frame structures were added in the late 1870s. The post was expanded on September 3, 1867, to be two miles square with a two-mile-wide hay reserve extending along each side of the Quinn river for . On October 4, 1870, this hay reserve was extended further up and down the river bringing the total to . Fort McDermit's purpose was to protect the stage route and wagon road from

Virginia City Virginia City is a census-designated place (CDP) that is the county seat of Storey County, Nevada, and the largest community in the county. The city is a part of the Reno– Sparks Metropolitan Statistical Area. Virginia City developed as a boom ...

through

Star City, Nevada Star City was a silver-mining boom town in present-day Pershing County, Nevada. It was located in the Star Mining District. It is now a ghost town. The site is marked as Nevada Historical Marker 231. History Star City was established in 1861 wh ...

, in the Quinn River Valley, to

Boise City, Idaho Boise (, , ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho and is the county seat of Ada County. On the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and north of the Nevada border. The downtown area's ...

. It was the longest active Army fort in Nevada, lasting 24 years. Its troops participated in operations against the

Bannock Bannock may mean: * Bannock (food), a kind of bread, cooked on a stone or griddle * Bannock (Indigenous American), various types of bread, usually prepared by pan-frying * Bannock people, a Native American people of what is now southeastern Oregon ...

and

Shoshone The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ) are a Native American tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions: * Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming * Northern Shoshone: southern Idaho * Western Shoshone: Nevada, northern Utah * Goshute: western Utah, easter ...

Nations, and in the Snake War,

Bannock War The Bannock War of 1878 was an armed conflict between the U.S. military and Bannock and Paiute warriors in Idaho and northeastern Oregon from June to August 1878. The Bannock totaled about 600 to 800 in 1870 because of other Shoshone peoples b ...

, and the

Modoc War The Modoc War, or the Modoc Campaign (also known as the Lava Beds War), was an armed conflict between the Native American Modoc people and the United States Army in northeastern California and southeastern Oregon from 1872 to 1873. Eadweard Mu ...

. On July 24, 1889, as the last of the Nevada Army posts in service, it was turned over to the Indian Service. It was adapted for use as an Indian school on the

Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation The Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe is a federally recognized tribe of Northern Paiute and Western Shoshone peoples, whose reservation Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribes of the Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation spans the Nevada ...

References

{{coord, 41.972183, -117.622318, type:landmark_region:US-NV_source:GNIS, display=t McDermit History of Nevada Buildings and structures in Humboldt County, Nevada American Civil War army posts 1865 establishments in Nevada Snake War Nevada historical markers

See also

References