It all began in 1860, when the United States Army, Department of the Missouri, leased William Bent’s New Fort to use as a military base. Located on the banks of the Arkansas River about nine miles west of present-day Lamar, Colorado, the post served as an important military link on the Santa Fe Trail between Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and Fort Union, New Mexico. The army built barracks and erected defensive, diamond-shaped gun emplacements on earthworks surrounding the fort. Initially called Fort Fauntleroy, it was quickly renamed Fort Wise, for Henry A. Wise, governor of Virginia. When the Civil War began and Virginia seceded from the Union, the name had to change. It was renamed Fort Lyon, for Brigadier Nathaniel Lyon, the first Union general killed in the Civil War.
Charged with administering the Upper Arkansas Indian Agency, which encompassed the Cheyenne and Arapahoe reservation and stretched across much of southeastern Colorado, the army used the fort to store and distribute food, tools and supplies promised to the tribes by the 1861 Treaty of Fort Wise. Distribution went poorly as promised goods were slow in coming. Waves of settlers and miners headed for western gold fields flooded across the region putting pressure on the limited resources of the arid plains. Tensions rose and violence broke out between miners, settlers and Native Americans. By 1864, Colonel John Chivington was determined to end the “Indian problem” once and for all. He ordered the families of John and Amache Prowers and William and Owl Woman Bent sequestered on their respective ranches to prevent them from warning the tribespeople. He then led several hundred soldiers to a dawn attack on the unsuspecting Cheyenne and Arapahoe tribes camped nearby at Sand Creek. Troops slaughtered an estimated 148 villagers, mostly unarmed women and children, mutilated the bodies and set fire to the village. Colonel Chivington was later condemned for his actions, ending his military and political aspirations. Eventually, the government would give land grants as reparation to the survivors of those killed. The lands granted to Amache and her relatives would become the basis of the community of Boggsville.
In 1866, ice flows caused the Arkansas River to flood, heavily damaging the old fort. The army built a new fort near present day Las Animas, Colorado. It was laid out as a typical 19th-century western military fort, with a central parade ground surrounded by Officers Row in the north, Company Quarters on the east and west, and the headquarters building to the south. Life for the troops was not easy. Stern discipline, complex drills, shoddy surplus equipment and isolation negated the so-called charm of life on the frontier. However, while stationed at Fort Lyon, the soldiers regularly visited nearby Boggsville. Merchants enjoyed the patronage and the citizens appreciated the protection.
The fort was one home of the African American soldiers of the 10th Cavalry, known as the Buffalo Soldiers. The 10th Cavalry campaigned against Native American tribes throughout Colorado, Texas, Kansas, New Mexico and Arizona between 1867 and 1886. It is widely believed the nickname Buffalo Soldiers came from the tribes they fought against. The Buffalo Soldiers, most of whom were Civil War veterans, served with distinction and bravery during a time of widespread anti-black racism and violence. Sadly, their complex legacy is somewhat clouded because they helped disenfranchise another non-white people on behalf of a nation that still did not consider African Americans to be full citizens. However, the proud name and reputation of the Buffalo Soldiers live on. African American Buffalo Soldier units served in the Spanish-American War, 1898, the Mexican Revolution, 1916, and in both World Wars. In 1948, President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981 eliminating racial segregation in America’s armed forces. The last all-black units were disbanded during the 1950s. Mark Matthews, the nation’s oldest living Buffalo Soldier, died in 2005 at age 111 in Washington, D.C.
At the end of his life, Kit Carson lived in nearby Boggsville and was a frequent visitor to Fort Lyon. Returning from a trip to Washington, D.C. seriously ill, Carson moved to Assistant U.S. Surgeon H.K. Tilden’s quarters at Fort Lyon. He died May 23, 1868. A memorial chapel was built on the parade square from the stones of Dr. Tilden’s quarters. Stained glass windows in the chapel tell the story of bygone days.
The army operated Fort Lyon throughout the Indian Wars, leaving in 1897. The fort lay abandoned until 1906, when the U.S. Navy took control. They expanded and adapted the facilities to use as a tuberculosis hospital for sailors and Marines. Contemporary treatment recommended rest in the dry climate of the southwest and the fort fit the bill. The Department of the Navy wanted the hospital to be self-sufficient so they added agricultural fields, irrigation systems, support structures and a dairy, the remains of which can be seen today.
Sometime in the early 1900s, Confederate Army veteran Leroy Campbell planted the trees that today arch grandly over the road from the Fort Lyon gate. An admirer of horticulture, Campbell served as a body guard to Robert E. Lee and was present at the surrender at the Appomattox Courthouse. He would later serve three terms as a Bent County, Colorado, judge.
In 1907, the navy started a cemetery which is now Fort Lyon National Cemetery. The first veteran interred was Youayoshi Hosi, a Japanese-American from Pennsylvania who served as a navy warrant officer during the Spanish-American War. During World War I, a few German prisoners of war were treated at the hospital and two members of the German Imperial Navy are interred in the national cemetery.
The navy operated the hospital until 1922 when the Veterans Bureau assumed operations. In 1930, management fell to the newly created Veterans Administration. When the hospital was expanded again to include psychiatric facilities, they built the elegant Georgian Revival-style red brick buildings that now surround the parade ground, giving the campus its peaceful beauty. Agricultural and dairy operations continued as successful therapy for the patients.
The cemetery was transferred to the National Cemetery System in September, 1973. In 2000, the Kit Carson Memorial Chapel was moved to just inside the Fort Lyon gates. The hospital continued under the Veterans Administration until its closing in 2001.
The site was turned over to the State of Colorado and it housed a minimum-security prison for ten years. While a prison, the campus was listed on The National Register of Historic Places on May 5, 2004. The prison proved too expensive to operate and Fort Lyon was abandoned again in 2011.
The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless resurrected Fort Lyon a final time in September, 2013, and continues successful operations today. The verdant campus and stately buildings provide recovery-oriented transitional housing, counseling, education and employment services to people experiencing homelessness.