Fort Scott, KS

by Marti Attoun

As settlers pushed westward in the 1840s, the U.S. Army built a military fort to help keep peace on the frontier. Today, Fort Scott’s mission isn’t as peacekeeper, but as history keeper.

“Fort Scott is the only unit of the National Park System that represents a U.S. Army fort in the 1840s,” says Arnold Schofield, staff historian at the fort in Fort Scott, Kan. (pop. 8,297). “It’s the only fort that became a town when its buildings were sold at public auction. Other communities grew up around a fort. But this still exists. It is one of a kind.”

The fort looks much as it did when it was built. The post hospital, guardhouse, company barracks, officers’ quarters, and dragoon stables are among the 11 original buildings and nine reconstructed, all historically furnished, at the 17-acre National Historic Site.

Fort Scott the town and Fort Scott the fort have always been inseparable. The six-block Victorian-era downtown with its brick streets and elegant 1870s buildings is just a few feet from the fort.

As the frontier continued westward, the Army abandoned the base in 1853. Settlers bought the buildings and converted them into hotels, shops, and doctors’ offices. The military returned periodically to quell violence between Southerners and abolitionists, earning the Kansas Territory the nickname of “Bleeding Kansas.” The fighting continued even after Kansas entered the Union as a free state in 1861.

During the Civil War, the Army took over the fort as a district headquarters, supply depot, and recruiting and training center for thousands of soldiers, then left for good in 1873.

“The town’s history is so unique because it’s a microcosm of Western history,” says Mary Lynn Stevenson, director of the Fort Scott Area Chamber of Commerce.

The fort has always been the hub of the town, but when its 20-year restoration began in 1965, residents began to take notice of the community’s other architectural gems.

Grace Moore, now 90, helped organize town preservationists in 1968 to save one of the town’s oldest churches.

“One day I was walking down National Street and saw the Old Congregational Church—the only high-steeple church left in Fort Scott—and it was going to be torn down,” Moore recalls. “I went home and told my husband, and he said, ‘Well, do something about it.”’

She fired off a letter to the editor of the Fort Scott Tribune, calling the proposed demolition a disgrace in such an historic fort town. “You wouldn’t believe the phone calls and letters I got,” Moore says.

She and like-minded residents organized the Historic Preservation Association and raised the $25,000 and volunteer manpower needed to save the 1873 church. The group also founded the Ralph Richards Museum, which showcases area history, especially railroad and American-Indian artifacts.

Mayor Ken Lunt credits volunteers with protecting Fort Scott’s history. Three years ago, he started honoring these local heroes. Every two weeks, the city commission formally recognizes a volunteer or group.

“We’ve forgotten how to thank people. We take people for granted,” he says. Whether it’s the three residents who feed the ducks at the town’s Gunn Park or the 85 living history re-enactors who make the fort hum during the annual Frontier Candlelight Tour in December, the town applauds its own.

“I don’t know of any other city doing this recognition on a regular basis,” Lunt says. “But then Fort Scott is unique. It was a ready-made town when the fort was abandoned, but the fort is still protecting the community.”

Marti Attoun of Joplin, Mo., is a frequent contributor to American Profile.

first appeared: 9/23/2001