Blockhouse on Signal Mountain (Oklahoma)

Blockhouse on Signal Mountain is within the Fort Sill Military Reservation, north of Lawton, Oklahoma. The rock architecture is located along Mackenzie Hill Road within the Fort Sill West Range being the Oklahoma administrative division of Comanche County. In May 1868, the United States Cavalry reservation was entitled Camp Wichita as situated within the mixed grass prairie meadow of Medicine Bluffs. The blockhouse was established in 1871 pursuant to the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867 cordially looming over the course of time as the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Opening of 1901.

The stone structure was constructed on the summit of Wichita Mountain's Signal Mountain encompassing a terrestrial elevation of 1750 ft. The shelter has a dimension of 14 ft by 16 ft with a structural exterior consisting of native stone collected within the vicinity of the Wichita Mountains. The four wall dwelling was erected as some of the first limestone architecture as part of Fort Sill's Old Post Corral or United States Army Quartermaster Corps fortification foraged during the American Indian Wars on the American frontier.

The observation post was settled as a meteorological observatory and signal station. The elevated station provided support for military communications between Signal Mountain, Medicine Bluffs, Mountain Scott, and Fort Reno geographically positioned north of the Canadian River within the Great Plains. The Fort Sill, Indian Territory signal station officially commenced atmospheric observations and telegraphic communications on June 23, 1875 with meteorological reports beginning on September 9, 1875.

The Army Signal Corps employed flag semaphore, heliograph, and signal lamp before implementing the signal field wire lines enabling electric telegraphic communications. The optical communication applied visible light along a visual topographical line of sight for distant information exchange. The semaphore communications served as an intelligence assessment of the Wichita Mountains cadastre while safeguarding the transcontinental railroad and territorial prairie trails as an integration of the Westward Expansion Trails.

The mountainous altitude served as an observation of the Plains Indians equine flights disrupting the manifest destiny of westbound wagon trains ostracizing the Reconstruction era at the crest of the progressive Gilded Age. The high ground outpost continually anticipated the spontaneous mobilization of the Old Post Redoubt troops into the rugged terrain of southwestern Indian Territory.

The geology of Oklahoma elevation features an area reconnaissance potentially revealing the disturbance of the prairie by American Indian horse herds and bison hunting. The disquietude of the plains territory is reciprocative to the Oklahoma red beds and the shortgrass prairie of the Apache, Comanche, and Kiowa lands within Southwestern Oklahoma.

Native raids on southern prairie plains
The stone lookout station was decisively undisputed at the Fort Sill outpost after Sheridan's campaign during the winter of 1868 to 1869 and the realization of cultural assimilation of Native Americans.

The 1870s were seasons of significant transformation in light of the Buffalo Hunters' War and Red River War. The native disaccord developed as the United States American Indian laws and policy bewildered the Plains Indians way of life. The transgressions waged in opposition to the American Indian frontier culture culminated into a 1875 United States Supreme Court case known as Lobenstein v. United States, 91 U.S. 324.

During the commencement of 1870s, the Southern Plains tribes organized native raids on Indian Territory forts and military supply trains exemplifying the prairie plains as treacherous grounds for American frontier expeditions. The Army on the Frontier chartered a defense line of forts throughout Indian Territory and Texas as a deterrence for the safeguard of American pioneer, homesteading, and Territorial evolution of the United States.

Camp Supply Conflict of 1870
Comanche and Kiowa conduct a skirmish at Camp Supply on June 11, 1870 in the Indian Territory often referred to as the Cherokee Outlet.

Henry Warren Wagon Train of 1871
Comanche and Kiowa conduct a skirmish known as the Warren Wagon Train raid occurring on May 18, 1871 in Young County, Texas. The Texas native raids cultivated into what is known today as the Comanche Wars and Texas–Indian wars.

Wyllys Lyman's Wagon Train of 1874
During September 1874, Captain Wyllys Lyman guided a provisions train grouped as thirty-six empty wagons to Camp Supply for the replenishment of supply provisions. The wagon train was to collect provisions at Camp Supply and return to Nelson Miles Headquarters Dugout. The frontier range was located near the Washita River with the North Fork Red River situated approximately 25 mi south of the headquarters dugout encampment. On September 9, 1874, Lyman's wagon train commenced the return by prairie trail when the double column train with sixty soldiers encountered a skirmish with tribal bands of Cheyenne, Comanche, and Kiowa consequently regressing into a battle from September 9 to September 14, 1874.

The five day siege is often referred to as the Battle of the Upper Washita River transpiring in the Texas Panhandle within the proximity of Fort Elliott and the east coordinate of Roger Mills County, Oklahoma. The Plains Indians conflict was the third major battle of the Red River War occurring along the Historic Trails of the Southern Great Plains.

American Indian reverence and North American bison
The Bison antiquus was a big game species pursued by the Paleo-Indians during the Common Era or to a greater extent the folsom tradition and Upper Paleolithic period. During the 1990s, the Oklahoma Archeological Survey conducted a field survey within the northwest sector of the state of Oklahoma factually substantiating by radiocarbon dating the perception of the great bison belt, Peopling of the Americas, and precontact Oklahoma. The archaeological site located near the vicinity of Fort Supply, Oklahoma became known as the Cooper Bison Kill Site.

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the North American bison was aggressively hunted by frontiersmen and ridgerunners destructively devastating the population of the North American bison. The decimation of the Great Plains bison and the westward expansion of the American railroad propelled the lucrative economics of the buffalo bone business. The accretion, commerce, and trade of the bison remains flourished from 1870 to 1937.

The Buffalo rifle, including the Remington Rolling Block rifle, Springfield model 1873, Sharps rifle, and Winchester model 1876, was a prized provision on the Great Plains from 1870 to 1890.

Fort Sill and American Indian prisoners of war
By Acts of Congress and Department of War appropriations in 1894, the Fort Sill military reservation was pledged as a resettlement dominion for the American Indian prisoners of war confined at Mount Vernon Barracks within the vicinity of Mount Vernon, Alabama.

Fort Sill's Post Guardhouse
Fort Sill's Post Guardhouse was established from 1872 to 1873 as Cavalry barracks subsequently provisioned for a military stockade. The limestone structure is illustrative of the late 19th century confinement and relief formalities for hostile tribal leaders and Indian prisoners of war at the Fort Sill military camp. The domestic stone framework serves with historical significance considering the calendar span of the American Indian assimilation commencing in the late nineteenth century.

Listing on National Register of Historic Places
Blockhouse on Signal Mountain was listed on the National Register of Historic Places with the National Park Service on November 29, 1978.

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American Indians of Southwestern Oklahoma

American Bison and Preservation of Great Plains Species