Fort Reno is a former

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

cavalry post west of

El Reno El Reno is a city in and county seat of Canadian County, Oklahoma, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 16,989, marking a change of 1.55% from 16,729, recorded in the 2010 census. The city was begun shortly after the 18 ...

, Oklahoma. It is named for General Jesse L. Reno, who died at the

Battle of South Mountain The Battle of South Mountain—known in several early Southern accounts as the Battle of Boonsboro Gap—was fought on September 14, 1862, as part of the Maryland campaign of the American Civil War. Three pitched battles were fought for posses ...

in the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...

History

Fort Reno began as a temporary camp in July 1874 near the Darlington Agency, which needed protection from an

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...

uprising that eventually led to the

Red River War The Red River War was a military campaign launched by the United States Army in 1874 to displace the Comanche, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, and Arapaho Native American tribes from the Southern Plains, and forcibly relocate the tribes to reservati ...

. After the conflict ended, the post remained to control and protect the Southern Cheyenne and Southern Arapaho reservation, and Fort Reno was established as a permanent fort on July 15, 1874. Soldiers from Fort Reno also attempted to control Boomer and

Sooner Sooners is the name given to settlers who entered the Unassigned Lands in what is now the state of Oklahoma before the official start of the Land Rush of 1889. The Unassigned Lands were a part of Indian Territory that, after a lobbying campa ...

activity during the rush to open the

Unassigned Lands The Unassigned Lands in Oklahoma were in the center of the lands ceded to the United States by the Creek (Muskogee) and Seminole Indians following the Civil War and on which no other tribes had been settled. By 1883 it was bounded by the Cher ...

for settlement. Among the units stationed here were the famed Ninth Cavalry of

Buffalo Soldier Buffalo Soldiers originally were members of the 10th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army, formed on September 21, 1866, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. This nickname was given to the Black Cavalry by Native American tribes who fought in th ...

s. The fort lent its name to the city of El Reno, which still exists, as well as Reno City, which was abandoned before Oklahoma statehood. After Oklahoma statehood in 1907, the post was abandoned on February 24, 1908, but remained as a quartermaster remount depot. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, German and Italian prisoners of war were housed on the grounds; the fort's chapel was built by members of the

Afrika Korps The Afrika Korps or German Africa Corps (, }; DAK) was the German expeditionary force in Africa during the North African Campaign of World War II. First sent as a holding force to shore up the Italian defense of its African colonies, the ...

. In 1949, the fort was abandoned by the Army and transferred to the

U.S. Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of comme ...

, which uses it as its Grazinglands Research Laboratory. The laboratory's mission is to develop and deliver improved technologies, management strategies, and strategic and tactical planning tools which help evaluate and manage economic and environmental risks, opportunities, and tradeoffs, for integrated crop, forage, and livestock systems under variable climate, energy and market conditions. The remains of German and Italian prisoners of war, residents of the fort, pioneer settlers, and military personnel are interred in the fort's cemetery. Ben Clark, a frontier scout for

George Armstrong Custer George Armstrong Custer (December 5, 1839 – June 25, 1876) was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars. Custer graduated from West Point in 1861 at the bottom of his class, b ...

and

Philip Sheridan General of the Army Philip Henry Sheridan (March 6, 1831 – August 5, 1888) was a career United States Army officer and a Union general in the American Civil War. His career was noted for his rapid rise to major general and his close as ...

, is buried there. The fort is open to the public and has a visitor's center with fort memorabilia and exhibits. Fort Reno was added to the

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 ...

in 1970.

Land controversy

An executive order in 1883 officially identified the area assigned to Fort Reno as in the Cheyenne and Arapaho reserve, "setting apart for military purposes exclusively of the tract of land herein described." A presidential proclamation (27 Stat., 1018) signed April 12, 1892 by

Benjamin Harrison Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833March 13, 1901) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 23rd president of the United States from 1889 to 1893. He was a member of the Harrison family of Virginia–a grandson of the ninth pr ...

extinguished all Cheyenne-Arapaho claims to their reserve except for individual allotments, including any claims to Fort Reno For several years the combined Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes have been trying to re-acquire the lands the fort occupied. In 1996, they donated

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

107,000 to the Democratic National Committee with a memo titled "Fort Reno," and at the same time asked the Clinton administration to get an opinion from the Department of the Interior on their claims. The

U.S. Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

investigated them for their actions in 1997 but the tribes refused to appear without a grant of immunity. In 1999 the Interior Department issued an opinion saying that the tribes did have a credible argument that they did not cede the lands that were used by the military. Several attempts have been made by Democratic politicians to aid the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes, most notably Eni Fa'aua'a Hunkin Faleomavaega, Jr. of

American Samoa American Samoa ( sm, Amerika Sāmoa, ; also ' or ') is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean, southeast of the island country of Samoa. Its location is centered on . It is east of the Internationa ...

in 1997 and by Senator Daniel Inouye of

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

in 2000. In 2005, Oklahoma Senator

Jim Inhofe James Mountain Inhofe ( ; born November 17, 1934) is an American politician serving as the senior United States senator from Oklahoma, a seat he was first elected to in 1994. A member of the Republican Party, he chaired the U.S. Senate Committ ...

, co-sponsored by Senator

Tom Coburn Thomas Allen Coburn (March 14, 1948 – March 28, 2020) was an American politician and physician who served as a United States senator for Oklahoma from 2005, until his resignation in 2015. A Republican, he previously served as a United St ...

, introduced a bill to authorize the Secretary of Agriculture to lease oil and gas resources under the fort to fund preservation of the historic site and buildings. The bill received a committee hearing but no further action.

References

External links

Historic Fort Reno, Inc.

Fort Reno info, photos and video on TravelOK.com
Official travel and tourism website for the State of Oklahoma
Oklahoma Digital Maps: Digital Collections of Oklahoma and Indian Territory
{{NRHP in Canadian County, Oklahoma Pre-statehood history of Oklahoma

Reno Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the ...

Military and war museums in Oklahoma Museums in Canadian County, Oklahoma Indian Territory Buildings and structures in Canadian County, Oklahoma U.S. Route 66 in Oklahoma

1875 establishments in Indian Territory Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Oklahoma National Register of Historic Places in Canadian County, Oklahoma

History

Land controversy

References

Further reading

External links