FORT DODGE-CAMP SUPPLY MILITARY ROAD
FORT DODGE-CAMP SUPPLY MILITARY ROAD The Fort Dodge Camp Supply Military Road passed several hundred feet west of this marker. The route was established in 1868 during General Phillip H. Sheridan's winter campaign against Indians in Texas and the Indian Territory. The ungraded prairie trail, approximately 90 miles long, was important for transporting supplies from Fort Dodge and Dodge City to Camp (later Fort) Supply in present Oklahoma, and was an important link in the communications system of western outposts. In the 1880s, a government telegraph was erected along the route of the trail. In Clark County two 50-foot square fortifications (redoubts) were built to house cavalry patrols assigned to keep the mail and supply route open. In the 1870s and 1880s, the military road served as a branch of the Western Trail over which cattle were driven to Dodge City and beyond. The present road between Bloom and Ashland follows the Fort Dodge-Camp Supply Military Road.
US-54, Ford County
Rest area northeast of Bloom
Plaque via Kansas Historical Society, and is used with their permission. Full page