The site of Fort Dodge along the Arkansas River in Kansas was originally an old campground for wagons traveling west along the Santa Fe Trail, located just west of the western junction of the Wet and Dry Routes and near the Cimarron Cutoff, an alternate route of the Santa Fe Trail.

On 23 March 1865, Major General Grenville M. Dodge, who commanded the 11th and 16th Kansas Cavalry Regiments, wrote to Colonel James Hobart Ford to propose establishing a new military post west of Fort Larned. On orders of Col. Ford, Captain Henry Pearce, with Company C, Eleventh Cavalry Regiment, and Company F, Second U.S. Volunteer Infantry, from Fort Larned, occupied and established Fort Dodge on 10 April 1865.

Fort Dodge was used to maintain order along the Santa Fe Trail from their campsite upriver on the Arkansas River all the way to Fort Lyon, Colorado. The post was raided by Native Americans several times, with many horses being stolen and a number of soldiers killed in the raids. In a June 1865 raid, the US Army Inspector-General, D. B. Sacket, reported the Indians took every horse at Fort Dodge.

It was not until after the Civil War that the first housing were constructed at this fort, which were dugouts cut into the bank of the Arkansas River with canvas roofs. Later, the dugouts were replaced with wooden and stone buildings. Eventually, there was about four companies of troops that occupied at the post. Apparently in its later years only about a dozen men occupied it and their main duty was to provide escorts to protect mail passing through the area.

In 1882 the post was closed. A single custodian was assigned to keep watch over the property. A number of buildings were torn down or moved away, but many of the stone buildings remained. By the late 1880s, since most of the buildings were still functional, residents of Dodge City worked to have the old fort used as a home for retired soldiers. After much work toward that goal, a federal law was enacted in 1889 authorizing the use of the post by the State of Kansas as a home for soldiers.

In early 1890 the Kansas Soldiers′ Home was opened on the site. The Soldiers′ Home has been maintained at Fort Dodge ever since. Numerous improvements have been made through the years and there are provisions for the public to tour part of the site.

Repurposed as a Home for retired soldiers.

Santa Fe Trail

Photo: George Armstrong Custer′s Washita prisoners at Fort Dodge in 1868