CAMP WICHITACamp Wichita, the post was intended to serve as headquarters for the Kiowa-Comanche Reservation created under the provisions of the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867. The military post was established by Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan during the winter of 1868 69 at the junction of Medicine Bluff and Cache creeks, about seven miles south of Mount Scott in the Wichita Mountains, near present Lawton, Oklahoma. The site was recommended by Colonels Benjamin H. Grierson and William B. Hazen. Four companies of the Tenth Cavalry and two companies of the Sixth Infantry under the command of Colonel Grierson erected temporary log quarters until work could commence on permanent limestone structures. On August 1, 1869, the name of the post was changed to Fort Sill, in honor of Brig. Gen. Joshua W. Sill, killed on December 31, 1862, at the battle of Stones River, Tennessee. SEE ALSO: MILITARY–NINETEENTH CENTURY, WESTWARD EXPANSION. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Wilbur S. Nye, Carbine and Lance: The Story of Old Fort Sill (3d ed., rev.; Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1969). De B. Randolph Keim, Sheridan's Troopers on the Borders: A Winter Campaign on the Plains (1885; reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985). Bruce J. Dinges © Oklahoma Historical Society |