Sep 12, 2017
Set up as one of the military installations to guard the Santa Fe Trail during the western expansion, Fort Larned was built in 1859 along the bank of the Pawnee River in Kansas. It became a key post in the Indian wars between 1859 and 1869. An interesting aspect is that unlike common conceptions of a fort, Fort Larned and other military forts across the central plains did not have a tall guardian wall around it. It housed cavalry soldiers in barracks with enough artillery that kept Indian tribes at bay and sought peaceful solutions to the cultural conflicts.
