Fort Steilacoom

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Fort Steilacoom
National Register of Historic Places
Silas Casey's officers' quarters

Silas Casey's officers' quarters

Fort Steilacoom (Washington)
Paris plan pointer b jms.svg
location Lakewood , Washington, USA
Coordinates 47 ° 10  '44.4 " N , 122 ° 33' 50.4"  W.
architect AV Kautz
NRHP number 77001350
The NRHP added November 11, 1977

Fort Steilacoom was founded in 1849 by the US Army near Lake Steilacoom . It was one of the first US military branches north of the Columbia River in what is now Washington State . The fort was built due to the civil unrest over the Whitman Mission massacre in 1847.

On October 29, 1855, Nisqually Tribe Indians attacked white settlers in the area because they were dissatisfied with the results of the Treaty of Medicine Creek imposed on them the previous year; in particular, they were angry that their traditional fishing rights had been curtailed in the allocated reservation . During the "Indian War" from 1855 to 1856, the fort was the headquarters of the 9th Infantry Regiment. In the course of the conflict, the volunteer Colonel Abram Benton Moses was killed. At the end of the war, Territory Governor Isaac Stevens brought the Nisqually chief , Chief Leschi , to justice for Moses' death, which was overpowered in a skirmish on October 31, 1855 at Connell's Prairie.

Because Moses died in battle, the US Army rejected the execution of the death sentence at Fort Steilacoom and considered the chief a prisoner of war. The Territory's legislature then passed a law allowing Leschi's execution by civil authorities. On February 19, 1858, Leschi was hanged at what is now Lakewood . He was rehabilitated in 2004.

Fort Steilacoom was closed as a military post in 1868. The Washington Territory rededicated the fort as a mental hospital in 1871, with the barracks serving as accommodation for both patients and employees. Fort Steilacoom is now the Western State Hospital .

Four of the fort's houses have remained on the site and serve as a living historical museum. The post's graveyard has also been preserved and houses the burial sites of civilians from the Fort era. All known military burials were reburied in the San Francisco National Cemetery in the 1890s .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Court acquits Indian chief hanged in 1858 , Associated Press . December 14, 2004. 

Web links

Commons : Fort Steilacoom  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files