Fort Scott and Bleeding Southeastern Kansas

On the way back from the greater Kansas City area, I stopped in Fort Scott, Kan. because there was a fort there. Do I really need to explain myself? Yes? Fine. Because there was a fort there, whatever. This was like in October or something. It was a cool fort, and everyone that ever drives by Fort Scott should probably stop and check it out.

It’s been months now, though, so I don’t remember it all that well aside form thinking it was cool and people should stop there if they were driving through. Here are photos, maybe they’ll jog something.

So these houses were at the back of the fort. Oh yeah: the fort was a pre-Civil War fort, one that was supposed to form sort of a wall against Indians. Like, this was supposed to be the far western outpost of Euro-American civilization. They had dragoons stationed here (off to the left side of the frame), who rode horses and waved swords around. This was like in the 1840s or something, but then it got quickly overrun by Euro-Americans who wanted stuff west of here as well.

But the houses at the back of the fort were for the officers and their families. They were supposed to be nice-ish. IIRC they were two-unit duplexes. Also, the quartermaster sounded like a good guy who knew what he was doing. I mean the specific quartermaster who was here. I think he designed the fort and figured out how to store potatoes, things like that.

The pano is the view from the pre-Civil War hospital balcony; the below photo is the pre-Civil War hospital room. Reading about pre-Civil War medicine makes you feel okay about being alive today (as opposed to then). They were still thinking that mercury cured everything back then.

The left side of the panorama is where all the dragoons’ horses were kept. It’s a stable, I guess.

Above’s where the enlisted guys would play checkers when they weren’t out dragooning.

Not too far from there and also in southeastern Kansas, the map listed a “massacre site”, which I figured I should visit. It was for the Marais des Cygnes Massacre, which was sort of how “bleeding Kansas” got that name and did something or other resulting in the whole country that wasn’t in the south thinking that all slave owners were bad people. The something or other was a massacre. It was, like, the pro-slavery people tricked some anti-slavery people into coming with them under false pretenses, then told them all to stand in a ditch while they got shot.

The ravine is in front of my Jeep there. There was also a house on the property that was a house built by a friend of John Brown or something. Then I drove home (although, in truth, I went to the massacre before Fort Scott — tricked you!).

This is such a travel blog nowadays. Do I not have interesting thoughts otherwise? One assumes the negative based on the evidence at hand. Perhaps I have hit my angle of repose.

bkd

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump and Other Site

It’s hard to pass up a sign that says anything about smashed-in heads. For me. This place is a UNESCO world heritage site, but mostly for the sign I imagine.

Although after this sign there isn't much left to interpret.

It’s an ancient native American site. Apparently the braves on top of the cliff would get the buffalo riled up, then chase them over the edge of a cliff. Archaeologists speculate that they would kill all the injured buffalo with knives and that they left no survivors, since any survivors could go back and tell the other buffalo what had happened and thus spark an inter-species gang war.

This is the cliff from which they made the buffalo jump:

Archaeologists speculate that the cliff used to be taller.

It would have been cooler if there were actual buffalo jumping off the cliff. As it was, it just sort of seemed like a warm prairie with a visitors center.

OTOH, this is the house in which my grandpa was born in Cardston:

Although the tree was smaller back then.

For some reason it was closed — they usually give tours.

And thus ends my first post-hack blog post. Excelsior.

bkd

Custer’s Last Stand, My First Stop

Which is a little misleading in that I stopped in Chicago and spent the night at my brother’s place, then stopped the next night in Spearfish, So. Dak. and stayed at my other brother’s place. I also stopped at some gas stations, some fast food restaurants, and bought a new tail light off of Amazon.

First stop as a tourist.

The battlefield is like a battlefield. Some plains, a hill, a nice cemetery, and memorials. This one is interesting from the standpoint that the side that won the battle got to write most of the content even though the memorial is administered by the losing side’s parks service. About half of Custer’s army was born in Europe. And I’m wondering, after they killed their horses in order to give themselves something to take cover behind, how much optimism remained among Custer’s troops.

Custer’s Last View (might have looked different then).

Also: There were a lot of bikers in the area. I guess the Sturgis thing started over the weekend. If you’re 70 years old, I’m not sure that wearing a jolly Roger bandanna makes you bad ass. Not entirely sure is all.

bkd

Fort Necessity and George Washington

“Fort Necessity” is arguably the answer to the question of “Where did George Washington become George Washington?” No one ever asks that, but maybe they should. Definitely they should.

It’s where George Washington sort of took over from aristocratic old-school British General Edward Braddock in the French and Indian War. Supposedly Washington also sort of helped spark the war by leading an attack on a different French fort. And at some point Washington decided he needed to build a fort or else his guys would be unprotected from the French (ergo: “Fort Necessity”), and so this happened:

Soldiers were smaller back then — to them, this was palatial.

The pathway for tourists was not original to the fort. I’m not convinced these are the original earthworks, either. “Unprepossessing” was the word that kept coming to mind.

I mean, if you were to claim that the French and Indian War is the event that precipitated the American Revolution and  that George Washington’s sort of chicken move on the position of a nation that his wasn’t at war with yet was indeed the start of the French and Indian War, then this is a really important historical location. Anyway. Valley Forge and Bunker Hill better name recognition; that’s tough to fight. Plus there’s nothing to see here.

The fort lies along US 40, aka “The National Highway”. This was a highway originally dreamed up by George Washington, who, as I learned at Mt. Vernon, is responsible for everything good in the world. That Pat Sajack movie at Mt. Vernon really made me dislike George Washington, who apparently looked like a 50-year-old when he was 30. Different trip to Virginia though. Highway was meant to connect stuff east of the Alleghenies to stuff west of them (i.e., The Ohio Valley). I think that just because he started the French and Indian War, ol’ G-Dub had to make out like the Ohio Valley was super-important.

I probably like George Washington. That movie at Mt. Vernon really sucked though. Whatever. There’s an old tavern that’s on the same parks service site as the fort.

I didn’t go on the tour, so I don’t know if this tavern’s actually important. The highway was sort of important in that it actually got built whereas the canal system never quite made it. Not long after they finished the highway, though, the railroads made it obsolete. Except that now if you want to drive from Pittsburgh to Richmond, it’s useful again. Everything’s cyclical.

bkd

The Reagan Library in Simi Valley

Went there in early February with HC12 and allotted kids, thereby concluding my series of visits to local presidential libraries.

Never again to slip the surly bonds of earth (probably).

Pros:

• Air Force One on permanent display (the *old* Air Force One).
• It’s like a museum of my life from 1981-88. And I kind of liked being nine years old.
• Well, plus it seemed like there was an unusual number of momentous events that transpired during those eight years (although it may just be that those were the years of my life where I first started becoming aware of Everything).
• One of four surviving copies of the Magna Charta was on display!
• I get teary-eyed at Reagan’s speeches.
• Fantastic opportunities to discuss the question of which is more important: the reality of an individual or the idea of an individual. Although I don’t think the two are quite as separate from each other in Reagan’s case as they may be in the case of, say, Nixon or Lincoln. But maybe I’m just romanticizing the 80s. And romanticizing being nine years old. Plus Nixon and Lincoln are extreme cases. IMHO.
• Reagan is much more well-liked than Nixon and nothing at their respective libraries lets you forget that.

Cons

• Clear out in Simi Valley.
• Per the docents, the most interesting thing about the Magna Charta is the humidity inside the case that stores it.
• I felt bad for Old Air Force One. It’s like they’re trying to tease it by showing it the outside world even though they’re never going to let it get out there and fly again.
• The fudge they sell at the in-library pub was merely okay.

And not really a knock on the Reagan Library, but the Johnny Rockets in Agoura Hills left a lot to be desired. I think even my nephews would say as much.

Comparing the Nixon and Reagan libraries, obviously Reagan was much more impressive (Nixon has one of three helicopters he at some point used, while Reagan has freakin’ Air Force One, for example). Nixon comes across as a politician, while Reagan comes across as an icon who would’ve been an icon even if he’d never been president of the United States.

bkd

(Happy St. Patrick’s Day — fortunately, my blog is already green.)