Fort Rice was a United States military post established on July 11, 1864, by General Alfred H. Sully to protect white settlers entering Dakota Territory and to serve as a base for operations against hostile Indian tribes. Sully traveled up the Missouri River with a large force and left Colonel Daniel J. Dill in command of four companies of infantry and two companies of cavalry to build the fort at the chosen site, then continued westward, where the battles of Killdeer Mountains and Badlands were fought with the hostile Sioux. Fort Rice played an important part in the early history of North Dakota: from this post Colonel Dill and 600 soldiers went to rescue the Fisk expedition after hostile Indians attacked it near Rhame, North Dakota, while it was en route to the gold fields of Montana and Idaho. In 1873 General George A. Custer arrived at Fort Rice with the Seventh Cavalry and took part in the expedition to the Yellowstone River, and in 1876 a small body of troops from Fort Rice accompanied the Custer expedition to the Little Big Horn. After Fort Abraham Lincoln was established in 1872 and Fort Yates in 1878, Fort Rice was no longer needed, and the post was abandoned and dismantled in 1878; Fort Rice Military Reservation was turned over by the War Department to the Interior Department in 1884. The site of Fort Rice was secured by the State Historical Society of North Dakota in 1913, and State Park Authorities later sponsored WPA projects to restore the old fort buildings and preserve its history.