After having such a great time at Chadron State Park we decided to test if that was a fluke or if Nebraska parks are the real thing. Well we were delighted that they really are the real thing. We stopped at Fort Robinson State Park, still in the panhandle of Nebraska, as we headed on our way to Colorado. This Fort is a lesson on survival by change. I think there are a few industries and states that could learn a lesson here. This 22,000 acre property began as a post-Civil War Indian Agency protective post. Through time Fort Robinson has been the site of the tragic Cheyenne Outbreak, the death of Chief Crazy Horse, the nation's largest quartermaster remount depot where at one time they were training as many as 12,000 horses, a field artillery testing station, an Olympic Equestrian training center, a training center for dogs used by the military, the last gathering place of the Sioux Nation and a WWII prisoner of war camp.
The Buffalo soldiers have a fascinating history here. In the fifties it served as a Dept. of Agriculture research station before becoming Nebraska's largest state park. Now it's a wonderful place to bring families and experience the beauty of this place and learn a little history at the same time. In the early 1900's it was quite the place to be.
If you were stationed here you could play tennis, polo, swim, and more. It was known as a "country club". Social life was abundant and it was a formal entertainment style - out here in the wild west!
Everywhere we went we were asked if we were here with the horses. I wished I could have said yes as there were rows and rows of stables and beautiful country to enjoy by horseback. In the fall everyone brings their horse and rides for miles. You can stay at the Fort or stay in the campgrounds which are wonderful.
You can walk miles and look at old barracks,
and buildings from the early days of the fort such as these red brick 1906 blacksmith shops.
There are two museums - one on the history and changes undergone by the Fort and the other on the Columbian Mammoths found in the sixties just a few miles north of the Fort. They roamed this area 12,000 years ago. The two mammoths locked tusks in battle and scholars surmise one slipped on the slick mud and took the other one down with him. The skeletons were found intertwined and have been preserved as such. There were two paleontologists who battled with one another in this area in the late 1800's. The Univ. of Neb., who did the restoration of the mammoths, named the mammoths after these guys who never got along.
This was a really fun place to stop for a few days. If you ever head to the Black Hills of SD and have a little interest in history this is a fun place to visit....and you don't have to camp!
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