Fort Without a Stockade

Most military posts like Fort Randall did not have a stockade because military personnel protected the post, and on the Great Plains such frontier forts were usually open collections of buildings arranged around a central parade ground. During its 36-year history, Fort Randall's buildings were constructed, renovated, rebuilt, and given different functions, and stakes around the parade ground now mark where the main buildings once stood. The Fort Randall Military Reservation was established in 1860 to provide natural resources such as wood for building and heating and forage for horses and oxen, and to create a buffer zone between the fort and nearby settlers. A recollection from June, 1857, says that four companies had arrived the year before and built substantial log houses, rough but comfortable, around a reasonably sized parade ground, while cabins for married soldiers and commissary and quartermaster employees stood in the bottomland called The Hollow, near a sizable camp of Ponca Indians.

Pickstown, South Dakota · United States