Fort Leavenworth

You are standing on one of the oldest active United States Army posts west of the Mississippi River. Colonel Henry Leavenworth established this fort in eighteen twenty-seven to guard the wagon trains rolling out along the Santa Fe Trail.

From these bluffs above the Missouri River, soldiers protected commerce and overland travelers bound for Santa Fe, Oregon, and California, and rode out on the long campaigns of the Plains. The fort became known as the intellectual center of the Army, home to its Command and General Staff College, where generations of officers learned the art of war. In nineteen sixty, Fort Leavenworth was named a National Historic Landmark. Nearly two centuries after Leavenworth pitched his first camp, the flag is still flying, making this one of the longest continuously operating military installations in the nation.