This log cabin was constructed by the United States Army in the 1860's or 1870's at Fort McPherson from logs cut in the hills south of the Platte River near present-day Maxwell, Nebraska. Fort McPherson was established in 1863 by a detachment of Company G of the Seventh Iowa Volunteer Cavalry as a base of operations for patrols along the Oregon Trail. Placed at the head of Cottonwood Canyon, a migratory route for bison, it provided an advantageous point from which to watch local Native American tribes. The fort took part in operations during the Plains Indian Wars until hostilities in this area were brought to an end. Among its most famous actions was the Republican River Expedition of 1869, when Brevet Major General Eugene Carr and the Fifth United States Cavalry organized at Fort McPherson, set out for the Republican River to locate the Southern Cheyenne Dog Soldiers, found them camped along the South Platte River in Colorado, and attacked them. When the Battle of Summit Springs was over, the power of the Dog Soldiers was broken. By 1880 this part of the Plains was no longer threatened by Indian raids, and the army decommissioned the fort and reassigned the garrison to fronts farther west. Among those stationed at Fort McPherson, the scout William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody was especially notable.