Mitchell Pass and the city of Mitchell, Nebraska, take their names from Fort Mitchell, a military post built near here during the Indian Wars on a North Platte River bend northwest of Scott’s Bluff. The fort was named for General Robert B. Mitchell, who ordered several sub-stations of Fort Laramie to protect overland communications along the Great Platte River Road between Julesburg and South Pass. Fort Mitchell was constructed and manned in the autumn of 1864 by Company “H” of the Eleventh Ohio Volunteer Cavalry under Captain J.S. Shuman. In February 1865, its soldiers helped defend Mud Springs Station against an attack by Cheyenne. In June 1865, they rescued Fort Laramie troops ambushed by Sioux near Horse Creek. They also pursued Indians who tore down telegraph lines and attacked wagon trains and stage coaches. Although no trace of the sod structure remains, eyewitness descriptions by Eugene Ware, John Bratt, and Margaret Carrington, along with an official ground plan and an 1866 sketch by William H. Jackson, show a stockade with a sally-port, firing loop-holes, and a sentinel tower. A nearby road ranch served as the Scott’s Bluff stage station, and Fort Mitchell was abandoned after the Fort Laramie peace conference of 1867.