Fort Gibson Fort Gibson , now located in Oklahoma and designated Fort Gibson Historical Site , guarded the American frontier in Indian Territory from 1824 until 1890 . When constructed , the fort lay farther west than any other military post in the United States ; it formed part of the north – south chain of forts intended to maintain peace on the frontier of the American West and to protect the southwestern border of the Louisiana Purchase . The fort succeeded in its peacekeeping mission for more than 50 years , as no massacres or battles occurred there . Building the fort . Colonel Matthew Arbuckle commanded the 7th Infantry Regiment ( United States ) from Fort Smith , Arkansas . He moved some of his troops to establish Cantonment Gibson on 21 April 1824 on the Grand River ( Oklahoma ) just above its confluence with the Arkansas River . This was part of a series of forts which the United States established to protect its western border and the extensive Louisiana Purchase . The US Army named the fort for Colonel ( later General ) George Gibson , Commissary General of Subsistence . The post surgeon began taking meteorological observations in 1824 , and the fort provided the earliest known weather records in Oklahoma . Colonel Arbuckle also established Fort Towson in southern Indian Territory . In the early years , troops constructed a stockade , barracks , other facilities , and roads . They also settled strife between the indigenous Osage Nation , which had been in the area since the seventeenth century , and the earliest bands of western Cherokee settlers . Indian removal . Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830 , which led to a new mission for Cantonment Gibson . The Army designated the cantonment as Fort Gibson in 1832 , reflecting its change from a temporary outpost to a semi - permanent garrison . Soldiers at Fort Gibson increasingly dealt with Indians removed from the eastern states to Indian Territory . These newcomers complained about hostility from the Osage Nation and other Plains Indian tribes indigenous to the region . Montfort Stokes , former governor of North Carolina , convened a commission at Fort Gibson to address these problems , and troops at the fort supported its work . The American author Washington Irving accompanied troops exploring the southern Plains west of Fort Gibson in 1832 . This excursion and another journey in 1833 both failed to find any significant nomadic Indian tribes , but Washington Irving wrote " A Tour of the Prairies " in 1835 from his experiences . General Henry Leavenworth in 1834 led First Dragoon Expedition on a peace mission to the west , finally established contact with the nomadic Indian tribes . The artist George Catlin traveled with the dragoons and made numerous studies . General Leavenworth died during the march , and Colonel Henry Dodge replaced him in command . The expedition finally established contact and negotiated the first treaty with the Indian tribes . Debilitating fevers struck and killed many men on this expedition , posing more of a danger than the Native Americans . A West Point officer assigned to the fort said the men felt that expeditions to the Plains in the 1830s were " a veritable death sentence . " During these years , the soldiers at Fort Gibson built roads , provisioned incoming American Indians removed from the eastern states , and worked to maintain peace among antagonistic tribes and factions , including the indigenous Osage Nation and the Cherokee Nation , a people removed from the American South to the Indian Territory . During the Texas Revolution against the weak Mexican government , the Army sent most of the troops stationed at Fort Gibson to the Texas border region . Their absence weakened the military power and pacification capacity at Fort Gibson , but the reduced garrison maintained stability in the region . At the height of Indian removal in the 1830s , the garrison at Fort Gibson ranked as the largest in the nation . Notable American soldiers stationed at ( or at least visiting ) Fort Gibson include Stephen W . Kearny , Robert E . Lee , and Zachary Taylor . The Army stationed Jefferson Davis , later president of the Confederate States of America , and more than 100 other West Point cadets at the fort . The Army also assigned Nathan Boone , son of the famous explorer Daniel Boone , to the post . After leaving Tennessee , Sam Houston owned a trading post in the area ; he later moved to Texas . At a bitterly contentious meeting at Fort Gibson in 1836 , the majority faction of the Creek reluctantly accepted the existing tribal government under the leadership of Chilly McIntosh , son of William McIntosh , and his faction . Colonel Arbuckle tried to prevent intratribal strife within the Cherokee , but Chief John Ross and his followers refused to acknowledge the government that earlier " Old Settlers " had established in Indian Territory . After losing the Seminole Wars against the United States Army in Florida , many of the Seminole arrived in Indian Territory " bitter and dispirited . " Officials at Fort Gibson prevented bloodshed and disunity among them . Pacification and first abandonment . When Colonel Arbuckle left Fort Gibson in 1841 , he reported that despite the arrival of 40 , 000 eastern Native Americans of decidedly unfriendly disposition , " I have maintained peace on this frontier and at no period have the Whites on our border or the Red people of this frontier been in a more perfect state of quiet and Security than they enjoy now . " The removed Native American nations gradually lost their desire for American military protection . Among the traders who operated at Fort Gibson was John Allan Mathews , who was the husband of the half - Osage Sarah Williams , daughter of William S . Williams . In the 1850s , the Cherokee complained about the liquor and brothels at Fort Gibson . They tried to prevent the sale of alcohol to their people , who could not tolerate it physically . The Cherokee ultimately urged Congress to close Fort Gibson , and the War Department heeded their request . In June 1857 , the Army abandoned Fort Gibson for the first time . The Cherokee nation received the deed to the property and improvements , and established the village of Kee - too - wah on the site . It became a center of traditionalists and eventually an independently federally recognized tribe of Cherokee . American Civil War . During the American Civil War , Union troops occasionally occupied the post . During the summer of 1862 , Union soldiers repulsed a Confederate invasion of Indian Territory . They left the fort and withdrew to Kansas . In April 1863 , Colonel William A . Phillips of the Indian Home Guard ( American Civil War ) ( Union Indian Brigade ) reoccupied Fort Gibson and kept it in Union hands throughout the remainder of the war . The Army briefly renamed the post Fort Blunt in honor of Brigadier General James G . Blunt , commander of the Department of Kansas . The fort dominated the junction between the Arkansas River and Texas Road , but Confederates never attacked the fort . Its troops under General Blunt marched southward in July 1863 and won the Battle of Honey Springs , the most important in Indian Territory . After the American Civil War , the US Army retained Fort Gibson . American soldiers ultimately established enduring peace with the Indian tribes of the southern Plains only after 1870 , but forts farther west increasingly took on the duties of securing that peace . For more than 50 years , Fort Gibson had kept peace in its area . The Army transferred most troops elsewhere in 1871 , leaving only a detachment responsible for provisions in a quartermaster depot . Cavalry mission . In 1872 the Tenth Cavalry reoccupied Fort Gibson . Soon after , workers were sent to the area to build the Missouri – Kansas – Texas Railroad from Baxter Springs , the first " cow town , " in Kansas , to the Red River crossing at Colbert ' s Ferry , Indian Territory , along the Texas border . This would improve transportation of cattle and beef to the east as well as shipping of goods from that area to the West . The cavalry from Fort Gibson was used to police the camps of local workers . Soldiers tried to manage threats from outlaws , white encroachment on Indian lands , intra - tribal disputes , and other issues . The size of the garrison varied with the workload . The Kansas and Arkansas Valley Railway built track through the area in 1888 , and the town of Fort Gibson , Oklahoma began to develop . In the summer of 1890 , the Army abandoned Fort Gibson for the last time . Troops occasionally camped at the site when unrest brought them to the town of Fort Gibson , which took the name of the fort . After the military permanently departed , the civilian town expanded into the former military grounds of the fort . Historic site . The Works Project Administration of the Franklin D . Roosevelt administration in the 1930s reconstructed some or all buildings at the fort , as part of historic preservation and construction work that the government sponsored during the Great Depression . In 1960 the National Park Service designated Fort Gibson as a National Historic Landmark . The old fort was located in present Muskogee County , Oklahoma . It is located at Lee and Ash Streets in Fort Gibson , Oklahoma . The Oklahoma Historical Society operates the site , which includes a reconstruction of the early log fort , original buildings from the 1840s through 1870s , and the Commissary Visitor Center , which has museum exhibits about the history of the fort . The site hosts special living history events and programs . Fort Gibson National Cemetery lies a few miles away .