The circle banner. [volume] (Circle, Mont.) 1914-1939, 1920-07-16
STORY OF FORT ASSlNNIB0lNE, LARGEST
MILITARY POST CONSTRUCTED I'M MONTANA

OF the territory or Montana as {
protection to the few settlers who
were filtering into this great ex.
panse of virgin country, being If
the height of its glory during q
period of from 20 to 40 years ago
old Fort Assinniboine, the north
ernmost post in Montana and one
of the last to be abandoned by the
war department, is now little more
than a collection of abandoned and
weather beaten buildings, visited
occasionally by automobile parties
from Havre or by a few farmers
who desire to visit the agricultural
experiment station now maintain
ed there.
For more than 10 years the post
has been a veritable deserted vii
lage, no bugle call has reverber-
ated between its various structures
and no uniformed men have been
gathered upon its parade ground. 1t
has been turned over to the state
for use as an agricultural and man
ual arts training school and has so
been designated by legislative en-
actment, but no state appropria-
tons, although passed by the legis-
lature, have ever been made avail
able for the rehabilitation of the
buildings and the maintenance of
the proposed school.
Time after time the people of the
city of Havre, near which the fort
is located, have conducted cam
paigns to obtain from the state the
money required for the opening of
the school and while they have gen
orally succeeded in getting an item !
for that purpose included in the
appropriation bills, the
appropriations have always so
greatly exceeded the states reven-
ues that when the Assinniboine
school came in fof its share there
was nothing left for it.
Old Fort Assinniboine has some
what of an interesting history as
was told as follows in an article
published on the Fourth of July,
1900:
Authorized in 1878
Fort Assinniboine is the largest
military post ever constructed in
Montana and for manv years was
as one of the most i'm
'ortant strategic points in the
northwest. A bill authorizing the
of a military post at
n near its present location was
'assed by congress in 1873 and was
pproved June Is of the same year.
The act appropriating 100000 to-
ward the building of Fort Assinni-
oine cited that the post was needed
or the protection of the citizens {
nd settlers of Montana from the |
ostile incursion of Indian tribes s
yelling in that region, and espe- {
tally of that portion Of the Sioux /
Which had then been withdrawn c
cross the international boundary "
ne after the victory over United t
tates troops in the Yellowstone v
ountry. This evidently had ref (
renee to the Custer massacre. a
In the spring of 1873 Lieutenant $
olonel John R. Brooke, who later b
'on renown in the Spanish-Ameri- v
an war, serving for time as gov q
-nor-general of Cuba and who is c
ow in command of the military Il
apartment of the east, with head c
larters on Governors Island, 0
lille in command of the Third in
lntry had selected the site of the t.
new post after thor ~
Ugh inspection of that entire re- h
on. IL
Early in the following year, Col b
lei Ruger, commanding the 18th tt
valry, then stationed in Georgia, C
as ordered to proceed to Milk b
YER, Montana, and there garrison v;
e proposed post. In time the et
reached Bismarck, where Pr
rec steamers awaited the arrival OF
the soldiers to carry them up the re
yer to the point of debarkation. Pr
fter a tedious voyage of hun sh
eds of miles up the Missouri, the tn
pops were landed at the Coal tn
INKS, 40 miles from their destina-
N, and marched to the present In
e of Fort Assinniboine. of
The post was laid out and for is
lily established on May 9, 1879. ex
is in the form of rectangle and at
points of the compass lies near FRI
northeast and southwest. The sal
itude is 900 feet above the sea tai
ell. The situation is near Beaver L.
elk, about five miles south of an
It tributary's confluence with