Fort Wallace

Saturday, Marilyn, Wendy and I took a day trip to Fort Wallace Museum, Wallace, Kan.

Hubby and I had visited the museum last year, when I took the picture above. I was pleasantly surprised on Saturday when I saw that Pond Creek Station, a stage stop, the red building left of the museum, and Weskan Railroad Depot, the yellow building, were open and had been refurbished. That is such an improvement.

This license plate is very appropriate for its owner, who had made the buffalo sculpture and numerous others at the museum out of recycled barbed wire. Barbed wire is pronounced “bob wire”.

Marilyn takes a closer look at Bob Wire Buff. Fence around it is constructed from post rock (limestone) posts and, of course, barbed wire. These posts are constructed by drilling holes in native limestone.

Marilyn (left) and Wendy try to take a ride on a railroad repair cart, but it refused to take them anywhere. After all, it’s chained to the railroad tracks. Now, how not fun is that? We wanted a joyride!

The museum added a new addition last year for Floris and Viola Weiser’s collection of military, pioneer and Native American artifacts he discovered with his metal detector. The addition holds a diorama of the fort. Nothing exists of it today other than the post cemetery. Building materials were scarce in the area and the abandoned post was shortly turned into other buildings. These soldiers were on the parade ground. When I took their picture, I thought of Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. George Armstrong Custer, who would later die with all his men at the Battle of the Bighorn, was court-martialed for his efforts to relieve a siege of Fort Wallace. After being suspended from rank and pay for a year, Custer returned to the Indian Wars. Custer’s rashness and disregard for his soldiers in this instance presaged the mistakes that cost him and his immediate command their lives in his Last Stand. In the movie, Custer laments the loss of his command, but redeems himself by fighting off the evil Pharaoh. If these soldiers came to life after sundown, what would they say about “The Boy General”?