Constructed along the Niobrara River after the Great Sioux War of 1876, it was part of a military strategy to surround and thus contain the bands of Lakota people on their reservation lands located in the Dakota Territory.
In November and December, 1890 the garrison responded to the Ghost Dance crises on the Sioux reservation, by securing the Rosebud agency.
Detachments were dispatched from the fort by railroad to provide assistance during times of civil strife, including the Wyoming Johnson County War in 1892, and the national Pullman Strike in 1894.
The 25th had good relations with the Nebraskan community around the fort during 1902 to 1906, but in sharp contrast, they encountered immediate and extreme racial prejudice upon relocation to Texas.
In 1912 about 16,000 acres were set aside to become the Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge where today sizable herds of buffalo, elk and Texas longhorn cattle are kept.
Famous military figures stationed at the fort include John J. Pershing, Frederick W. Benteen, and James S. Brisbin.
The site of the fort just east of Valentine Nebraska may be visited today, with the exception of one barn, little evidence remains of its historic past.
[1] The Fort was sited on the south bank Niobrara River, for which it was named, at a location several miles east of present-day Valentine, Nebraska.
The purpose of the fort was to watch over the activities of Chief Spotted Tail's band of about 8,000 Brulé Lakota who were at the Rosebud Agency.
The arrival of the railroad and telegraph connections suddenly increased the potential of the garrisons of the two forts to act in coordinated and concerted military action in the event of trouble on the Sioux Reservation.
[1] The railroad also made the fort area the transportation hub for the large volume of treaty goods and supplies that the Indian Department regularly provided to about 8,000 Brulé Lakota at the Rosebud agency located 40 miles to the north.
In the first two years of operation, before the arrival of the railroad, freight carried by wagon had taken 10 days to reach the fort from the nearest rail terminus at Neligh, Nebraska.
The construction of the fort in 1880 brought a sense of security to settlers in north central Nebraska, offsetting concerns about the large concentrations of Lakota bands on their reservation, located just across the state boundary in the Dakota Territory.
The arrival of the railroad also stimulated an increase in the flow of settlers into the area and in 1882 Valentine, Nebraska came into existence, located only four miles west of the fort headquarters.
[1] The fort commissary and quartermaster bought produce from the region, including hay, corn, oats, beef, milk, butter, eggs, and poultry.
[1] Civilian blacksmiths, wheelwrights, and teamsters were employed at the post, and the fort occasionally hired carpenters, mechanics and plumbers, all of which stimulated the growth of the town and the surrounding region.
Throughout the Ghost Dance campaign, Fort Niobrara served as an important transportation point to send troops and supplies north to the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota reservations.
[1] In the years immediately after 1880, before effective civil law enforcement was developed in Cherry County, Nebraska, the military presence at Fort Niobrara deterred lawlessness and crime on both sides of the reservation line.
This field training evolved into large scale maneuvers, sometimes shared with Army units from other posts who came to Ft. Niobrara by rail.
[1] Because of the Ghost Dance incident during the last months of 1890, the Army determined that the necessity of troop presence at Fort Niobrara near the Sioux reservations still existed, and after 1890 the post was expanded.
Because troops could be quickly entrained and dispatched on the FE&MV Railroad, during the 1890s detachments of Ft. Niobrara soldiers were sent to quell civil disturbances.
As the Spanish–American War of 1898 got underway, Army mobilization orders swiftly dispatched soldiers to southern ports for the anticipated invasion of Cuba.
During this four-year period from 1898 to 1902, Fort Niobrara was reduced from its former elevated status of a large regimental headquarters post to a lowly skeleton garrison of one company of the 22nd Infantry, with troop levels dropping to less than 100.
[1] On July 28, 1906 the troops of the black 25th regiment left the Fort and marched to Valentine, Nebraska station to board trains.
On August 13, 1906 (just over two weeks after leaving Fort Niobrara) a shooting incident occurred in Brownsville in which a bartender was killed and a Hispanic police officer was wounded.
A handful of seven buildings were retained for the headquarters for quartermaster remount operations, and the rest were sold at auction in 1906, with the condition they be demolished and the grounds of the fort left clean.
[3] From 1906 to 1911 a small cadre of quartermaster offices and employees operated the fort as a remount depot, where they supervised the purchase of horses for cavalry and artillery.
[3] In 1912, after the remount depot activities ended, sixteen thousand acres of the original military reservation was set aside as a national game preserve by a conservation minded federal administration.
[3] The nucleus of 16,000 acres has been enlarged and has since become Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge, with ranges maintaining sizable herds of buffalo, elk and Texas longhorn cattle.
[5] To reach the Fort Niobrara National Wildlife Refuge headquarters take Nebraska Highway 12 (also called the Outlaw Trail Scenic Byway) east and northeast from Valentine, Nebraska for about 4.5 miles, and then follow signs for the Wildlife Refuge, turning back east over a bridge over the Niobrara River for about three-quarters miles.