Fort Mackenzie is a former U.S. Army post in

Sheridan, Wyoming Sheridan is a town in the U.S. state of Wyoming and the county seat of Sheridan County. The town is located halfway between Yellowstone Park and Mount Rushmore by U.S. Route 14 and 16. It is the principal town of the Sheridan, Wyoming, Micropo ...

, now used by the U.S. Veterans Administration as the Sheridan Veterans Administration Medical Center.

History

Fort Mackenzie was established in Sheridan in 1898 as a U.S. Army outpost in northern

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the s ...

. It was named for Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie (1840 – 1889), a veteran of the

Powder River Expedition :''This event should not be confused with the Big Horn Expedition during the Black Hills War.'' The Powder River Expedition of 1865 also known as the Powder River War or Powder River Invasion, was a large and far-flung military operation of the U ...

who defeated

Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enr ...

Chief

Dull Knife Morning Star (Cheyenne: ''Vóóhéhéve''; also known by his Lakota Sioux name ''Tȟamílapȟéšni'' or its translation, Dull Knife) (1810–1883) was a great chief of the Northern Cheyenne people and headchief of the ''Notameohmésêhese'' ("N ...

near the

Big Horn Mountains The Bighorn Mountains ( cro, Basawaxaawúua, lit=our mountains or cro, Iisaxpúatahchee Isawaxaawúua, label=none, lit=bighorn sheep's mountains) are a mountain range in northern Wyoming and southern Montana in the United States, forming a nort ...

in the

Dull Knife Fight The Dull Knife Fight, or the Battle on the Red Fork, part of the Great Sioux War of 1876, was a battle that was fought on November 25, 1876, in present-day Johnson County, Wyoming between soldiers and scouts of the United States Army and warrior ...

of 1876. Established 24 years after the

Battle of Little Bighorn The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, and also commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota Sioux, Nort ...

and after nearby military posts in

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

had been abandoned, the fort was regarded as a

pork-barrel ''Pork barrel'', or simply ''pork'', is a metaphor for the appropriation of government spending for localized projects secured solely or primarily to bring money to a representative's district. The usage originated in American English, and i ...

project instigated by Wyoming's Congressional delegation following Wyoming statehood in 1890, rather than as a project driven by military requirements. The first garrison arrived in June 1899, with one officer and 20 enlisted personnel. By 1903 more troops had arrived, including two "

colored ''Colored'' (or ''coloured'') is a racial descriptor historically used in the United States during the Jim Crow Era to refer to an African American. In many places, it may be considered a slur, though it has taken on a special meaning in Sout ...

" units. The peak of the establishment was reached in 1911 with 601 men. The post rapidly declined after that when World War I created higher priorities for manpower and garrisons, and the post was abandoned on November 3, 1918. with The original military post included of land. The site was initially transferred to the

Public Health Service In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

in 1921. From 1922 the site was used as a veterans hospital, with an initial capacity of 125 beds. At its peak in the late 1940s it had 900 beds, specializing in neuropsychiatric conditions. In the late 1970s the hospital's capacity was 364 beds, with a staff of 505. In 2014 the facility provided 208 beds with outpatient services for 12,500 veterans.

Description

There are 48 structures listed as contributions to the Fort Mackenzie

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

district. The campus represents a uniform community of red brick hospital buildings, residences and supporting with simplified neoclassical detailing. The hospital reservation comprises with about 78 buildings, most of which were built for the military garrison or for the establishment of the hospital. Many of the remaining buildings were built from the 1930s in a compatible style. The earlier buildings are arranged in two rows and along a curved avenue. The ensemble presents a homogeneous complex comparable to those of

Fort Yellowstone Fort Yellowstone was a U.S. Army fort, established in 1891 at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone was designated in 1872 but the Interior Department was unable to effectively manage the park. Administration was transfer ...

or the original army post at

Francis E. Warren Air Force Base Francis E. Warren Air Force Base , shortened as F.E. Warren AFB is a United States Air Force base (AFB) located approximately west of Cheyenne, Wyoming. It is one of three strategic-missile bases in the U.S. It was named in honor of Francis E ...

. Fort Mackenzie was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 18, 1981.

References

External links

Fort Mackenzie
at the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office
Sheridan VA Medical Center
at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs {{authority control National Register of Historic Places in Sheridan County, Wyoming Veterans Affairs medical facilities Sheridan, Wyoming Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Wyoming