Carved Kansas - Fort Larned National Historic Site - 1/16/2010

Forts in the NPS system are a curious and ubiquitous lot. From the ruins of Fort Union, to the reconstructed Bent's Old Fort to this isolated site in South Central Kansas, each site represented a respite to travelers on the Santa Fe Trail and a possible war target for the Native Americans fighting to protect their way of life. In some cases (Bent's Old Fort), a thriving trade was established between the soldiers, travelers and Native Americans satisfying all parties involved......At least for a while.

Driving endlessly on the plains of Kansas, everything begins to look the same. The round trip drive from the tiny burg of Goodland, KS to Nicodemus National Historic Site, then to Ft Larned and back, can easily be done in a day. Approximately 400+ miles for the entire loop, it certainly would not be a destination for most people on a unseasonably warm weekend in January, but for the Cales....it was another day, another stamp. The fort is located off of Hwy 156, approximately 6 miles east of a gas station, otherwise known as the town of Larned.

Fort Larned, while appearing the same as other forts we have visited, has the distinct difference of being the best preserved. The film is atrocious, but did help to complete the circle of the forts and battles that we had or were about to visit. The visitor center smelled of mildew, and one lonely park ranger actually appeared startled to even get a visitor. The pleasant view of the thousands of carvings that were made throughout the years of the Fort's existence, continue to be some of the best photos we have logged.

Every building throughout the fort is original, and still bears the markings of all of the inhabitants and passersby this small, dusty fort received.

We were the only visitors at the time we were at Ft. Larned, which made our walk around the fort's perimeter a nice one. A 55 degree day (!!) in January felt as though this was September or early October instead. The fort is outfitted with facsimiles of all military life throughout the buildings. Barracks, storerooms, blacksmiths, captain's quarters are all here....as they are in other forts. It was a lovely walk around the perimeter, but this site lacks something that you cannot put your finger on. It may be the BFE location, but it is not as satisfying as other spots on the NPS map.

The stamp, however - not at all satisfactory. For those not in the stamping obsession, each region has a specific color assigned to all the sites within. The Rocky Mountain Region is gold, the Western Region green and so forth. the Midwest Region is assigned to Orange. While that color cannot be the easiest stamp color to obtain, red is NOT a suitable substitution. Everyone knows red is Washington D.C. (oh, I'm sorry.......99.9999% of people in the country were not aware of this? Such is the nature of obsessions). Matt did not deal with this well at all.......

FINAL RATING

5/10