Junction City: Built to Serve the Fort

Fort Riley was established in eighteen fifty-three where the Smoky Hill and Republican rivers join to form the Kansas River, built to protect travelers on the Santa Fe Trail. The fort was named for Major General Bennett C. Riley, who had led the first military escort along that trail.

A few years later, a group of settlers established a town at the same confluence and named it Junction City, for the rivers, and also for the railroad junction they hoped would follow. It did. Junction City was incorporated by a special act of the Kansas Legislature in February of eighteen fifty-nine.

For over one hundred and seventy years Junction City and Fort Riley have been inseparable. The fort trained soldiers for the Civil War, both world wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The First Infantry Division, known as the Big Red One, is stationed here. The city that grew up at the gates of the fort has always lived by the rhythms of the military: booming when units deploy and return, quieting when they are away.