Fort Supply

Camp Supply was established in November 1868 to support efforts by the US military to engage and subjugate American Indian tribes in the southern Great Plains. It served as a forward base for the devastating attack by the 7th Cavalry against the village of Southern Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle on the Washita River on November 27, 1868. The post was designated Fort Supply in December 1878 in recognition of its important strategic position in a region without railroads. It sustained several companies of infantry and cavalry, including African American soldiers of the 10th Cavalry and 24th Infantry. Many civilians lived and worked at the post as well. Soldiers and civilians clashed with Native peoples while policing the Cheyenne and Arapaho Reservation and the Cherokee Outlet. Soldiers also expelled squatters, arrested thieves and smugglers, and escorted cattle drives and survey crews. In 1892, soldiers from Fort Supply oversaw the opening of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Reservation to settlement. They supervised the opening of the Cherokee Outlet one year later. Initially consisting of a wood stockade, Fort Supply contained almost one hundred buildings when it closed in September 1894. The site was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.