Historical Sites
The town of Fort Gibson is home to many historical venues, from the Fort Gibson Historical Site, the Garrett Home, the Cherokee National Cemetery and the Fort Gibson National Cemetery. Fort Gibson has many days worth of exploring to do.
Fort Gibson Historical Site
At the Fort Gibson Historic Site, visitors can explore a reconstructed early log fort and stockade, alongside original structures from the 1840s to the 1870s. The site’s history is detailed in exhibits found at the Commissary Visitor Center on Garrison Hill. Throughout the year, the site offers unique living history events, Bake Days featuring the historic bakehouse, and various educational programs.
The site boasts a log stockade, rebuilt during the Works Progress Administration in 1937. This structure saw a comprehensive restoration starting in 2013 and was reopened to visitors in 2016. Fort Gibson holds the status of a National Historic Landmark and is included in the National Register of Historic Places.
Oklahoma Historical Society
Oklahoma Historical Society – Events Calendar
Oklahoma Historical Society – Facebook
Garrett Home
This building is in the National register of Historic Places.
Built in 1867 and was part of the Fort Gibson Fort established in Indian Territory in 1824. The privately owned home has been in the Judge Claude Garrett family since 1924. That year young lawyer Garrett and his bride, the former Katherine Oldham, ignored the advice of elders and bought a ramshackle stone house looking across the weed-infested parade ground of the decayed fort.
Fort Gibson National Cemetery
Between 1824 and 1857, three small cemeteries were established at Fort Gibson for the burial of soldiers and their families. The U.S. Army maintained these cemeteries even after abandoning the fort.
In 1868, the Fort Gibson National Cemetery was created on the former military reservation, organized into four sections around a central officers’ circle with a flagpole.
In 1872, Secretary of War William W. Belknap ordered the quartermaster general to transfer the remains from Fort Washita, Fort Towson, and Fort Arbuckle in southern Oklahoma to this cemetery. Additionally, the remains of Union soldiers from battlefields and sites across Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri were reinterred here. By 1874, the cemetery held 2,296 graves, but only 194 were identified.
Although the U.S. Army left Fort Gibson in 1890, it maintained the 7-acre national cemetery, which was surrounded by a sandstone wall in harmony with the Second Empire-style lodge built in 1878. This lodge, originally the superintendent’s residence, was replaced by a Dutch Colonial-style brick building in 1934, and now an administration building stands on the site.
Fort Gibson National Cemetery Administration
Fort Gibson National Cemetery – Find A Grave
Fort Gibson is home to many more historical sites, for more information please contact the Chamber offices or the Oklahoma Historical Society – Fort Gibson.