Experience life on the Santa Fe Trail

With nine beautifully restored buildings Fort Larned offers the opportunity to experience military life on the Santa Fe Trail. Established on the vast prairie in western Kansas, troops stationed at Fort Larned protected mail coaches, freighters and other Trail traffic. As the site of an Indian Agency, the Fort was also instrumental in maintaining friendly relations with Plains Indians.

As Fort Larned closes in on its 150th anniversary in October 2009, park staff and community leaders are planning a series of special events focusing on celebrating the Fort’s history throughout the year. As the best preserved Indian Wars military post on Santa Fe Trail, Fort Larned National Historic Site is one of the Nation’s most compelling places to tell about that turbulent era of two cultures fighting for control of the West.

For the Plains Indians, it is a story of fighting for homelands in the face of overwhelming numbers and superior weapons. For the military, it is a tale of hard fought battles and skirmishes, some won and others lost, eventually leading to “Winning the West”.

Admission to Fort Larned NHS is free throughout the year, for a full programme of events throughout the year, log on to nps.gov/fols.

For more information on Kansas visit TravelKs.com.