Fort Robinson Museum

Story

Fort Robinson is a former U.S. Army fort and a major feature of Fort Robinson State Park, a 22000acre public recreation and historic preservation area located 2mi west of Crawford on U.S. Route 20 in the Pine Ridge region of northwest Nebraska. The fort was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1960 and is part of the Fort Robinson and Red Cloud Agency historic district, which includes Fort Robinson and the site of the second Red Cloud Agency (about 1.5mi to the east). The district also includes the Camp Camby site and the 1886 Percy Homestead. The fort is managed by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, with some individual buildings operated by the Nebraska State Historical Society and the University of Nebraska.HistoryIn August 1873, the Red Cloud Agency was moved from the North Platte River to the White River, near what is now Crawford, Nebraska, in the northwest corner of the state. The following March, the U. S. Government authorized the establishment of a military camp at the agency site. Some 13,000 Lakota had been resettled at the Agency, some of them hostile. There were continuing tensions between whites and Lakota on the Great Plains, who had been forced off much of their territory.