Fort Klamath Frontier Post - Fort Klamath Park Museum
N 42° 41.475 W 121° 58.430
10T E 584059 N 4727039
This historical marker is located within the Fort Klamath Park Museum (seasonally open from June to Labor Day) in Klamath County, OR.
Waymark Code: WMFYWZ
Location: Oregon, United States
Date Posted: 12/19/2012
Views: 2
Visitors to the Fort Klamath Museum Park will be educated on the history of Fort Klamath as well as other events that happened here over the years while this fort was in service. There is a sign near the entrance to the park that says 'FORT KLAMATH FRONTIER MILITARY POST ESTABLISHED 1863'. There is a monument that stands near the building that houses the Fort Klamath Museum within the park and has a metal plaque that reads:
FT. KLAMATH
FRONTIER POST
ESTABLISHED FOR THE PROMOTION OF PEACEFUL RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE INDIANS AND THE EARLY SETTLERS BY THE OREGON VOLUNTEER CALVARY IN 1863. THE POST WAS ABANDONED BY THE UNITED STATES ARMY IN 1890. NOW PRESERVED
AS A
KLAMATH COUNTY PARK
FOR ALL PEOPLE
DEDICATED AUGUST 1973
This Park Museum was also registered as a U.S. National Historic Place in 1971. The Klamath County Museum also has a page devoted to this site here and the Klamath County Park's webpage for this site can be accessed here. There is also another historic waymark very close to this monument and highlights the first-ever sawmill that operated in Klamath County by the Fort Klamath Army Post and can be waymarked here and here.
I personally feel the most poignant aspect of this historical site are the four graves of Modoc Indians who were hanged on October 3, 1873 at Fort Klamath for their part in fighting against the U.S. Army in the Modoc Indian War of 1872-3. To the best of my knowledge, the four natives who were hung - Captain Jack, Schonchin John, Black Jim and Boston Charley - have their bodies buried here at the grave site. Two other Modocs sentenced to die had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment at Alcatraz Island in San Fransisco. The four hangings and subsequent burials of these four men was a sobering end to the longstanding war and is still talked about to this day in numerous books, monuments and talks by local historians.
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