Be sure to visit www.santafetrail.org/geocaching to learn about the PASSPORT ACTIVITY to accompany this Geo Tour. Fort Dodge, named for Brigadier General Grenville M. Dodge, is located about 2.5 miles east of Dodge City, KS on Kansas Highway 154. The Fort Dodge military reservation—originally about 30,000 acres—was purchased from the Osage Indians. The post was founded in 1865 to help protect a long section of the Santa Fe Trail. A stage station preceded the fort, but it was burned by Indians. The need for a fort at this location was great; an unusually large camping area was situated where the dry route and the wet route of the Santa Fe Trail rejoined. The dry route came across the divide from Larned on the Pawnee [river], while the wet route followed the Arkansas River. The dry route was often without water the whole distance and wagons trains would lay over for several days to recuperate after making the passage and to prepare for the next phase of their journey. This caused the area around the site of Fort Dodge on the Arkansas River to become a great camping site. This area was known for interactions with the American Indians.
The first buildings at the fort were built of sod and adobe in 1865. Close to the Arkansas River was a clay bank about twelve feet high. There the soldiers were quartered in dugouts with port-holes all around. [According to the Dodge City Daily Globe, Sept. 10, 1930, "Seventy of these, each ten by twelve feet, were sunk in the river bank to a depth of four to five feet.... By 1870, wooden bunks were provided."] The officers were quartered in sod houses inside the enclosure. When lumber arrived in 1866, the first wooden buildings were erected. From this fort Gen. Phil Sheridan launched his winter campaign of 1868-69, and Fort Dodge was the point from which supplies were sent by wagon train into the field for that campaign. Those supplies came to Fort Dodge via the Fort Hays-Fort Dodge road. Fort Dodge troops were also charged with the protection of stagecoaches, mail, and railroad construction crews. The fort was removed from service in 1882. After its abandonment in June, 1882, part of the buildings were demolished and some were removed. Several original buildings still remain, including the commanding officer's quarters, several officers' quarters, enlisted men's barracks, and the post hospital. Although they have been remodeled, they illustrate army life along the Santa Fe Trail. Fort Dodge was only used as a military fort for 17 years, 1865-1882. Today the former fort serves as the Kansas Veterans' Home. The history of the Fort Hays-Fort Dodge Road is a very integral part of the story of this area of Kansas and a significant story relating to the history of the Santa Fe Trail. From the Introduction of the Auto Tour of "THE FORT HAYS/FORT DODGE ROAD" by David Clapsaddle, President, Wet/Dry Routes Chapter of the Santa Fe Trail Association: “During the first four decades of its fifty-nine year tenure, the Santa Fe Trail was repeatedly shortened as its eastern terminus was moved progressively westward from the original Missouri River Landing at Franklin to Fort Osage, Independence, Westport, Kansas City and finally Fort Leavenworth. Subsequently, in the next decade, successive sections of the trail were lopped off as a series of prairie ports were established along the westward expansion of the Union Pacific Railway Company, Eastern Division. In the summer of 1866, the railroad reached Junction City, Kansas; and in the following summer, the tracks pushed west to Fort Harker. From both railheads, mail, passengers, and freight were transported down The Fort Riley/Fort Larned Road to strike the established route of the Santa Fe Trail at Walnut Creek, 2 miles east of present Great Bend, Kansas. Consequently, overland traffic on the original route of the Santa Fe Trail east of Walnut Creek ceased. By October 1867, the railroad had pushed westward to Hays City. The newly organized town only one-half mile from Fort Hays became at once the Union Pacific railhead and the eastern terminus of the Santa Fe Trail. Thus was born The Fort Hays/Fort Dodge Road which ran seventy-five miles southwest to strike the established route of the Santa Fe Trail at Fort Dodge. Consequently, overland traffic on the original route of the Santa Fe Trail east of Fort Dodge also came to a halt.”
Containers on the Santa Fe National Historic Trail Geo Tour are military ammunition canisters, or Brochure-Holder boxes, with an identifying Santa Fe Trail Association yellow sticker on the top of the box, under the handle and the dark green geocaching.com ID is on the side of the boxes with the information that provides coordinates, who set the cache and who to contact for information. Each cache contains a logbook to sign, a variety of items that provide information about the Santa Fe Trail as well as swag items. If you are participating in the Passport activity, the code word is located on the inside of the box, on the top of the lid and is clearly identified as Code Word. Permission to set caches has been obtained. We ask that all cachers please respect all property at the sites where our caches are set. PLEASE NOTE: Fort Dodge is home to many Kansas Veterans. Please be respectful and visit this facility during their normal hours of 6 A.M. to 10 P.M. Visiting after 10 P.M. at night may result in a call to the local sheriff. Thank you for your understanding and the needs of our veterans -- Santa Fe Trail Association.