Camp Cooke (Montana)
| Camp Cooke | |
|---|---|
| Fergus County, Montana | |
| Coordinates | 47°43′58″N 109°40′34″W / 47.73278°N 109.67611°WCoordinates: 47°43′58″N 109°40′34″W / 47.73278°N 109.67611°W |
| Site history | |
| Built | July 10, 1866 |
| Built by | U.S. Army |
| Demolished | April 1870 |
| Garrison information | |
| Past commanders |
Major William Clinton (1866–67), Lieutenant Colonel George L. Andrews (1867–70) |
| Garrison | 13th Infantry Regiment |
Camp Cooke also known as Fort Claggett as a U.S. Army military post on the Missouri River in Montana Territory. The camp was established on July 10, 1866, just upstream from the mouth of the Judith River by the 13th Infantry Regiment. By 1867 Camp Cooke had a strength of approximately 400 men. The army established the post to protect steamboat traffic en route to Fort Benton. The boats carried passengers and freight to supply swiftly growing boom towns at the site of rich gold strikes in the western mountains of the Montana Territory.
The location of the fort was along the upper Missouri River as it crossed the broad eastern plains of Montana, far from the gold camps and boom towns in southwest Montana. The fort was also located deep in the remote badlands, called the Missouri Breaks, which parallels the Missouri River for hundreds of miles. Once the fort was constructed the garrison had little to do. Except for the high water months of May, June and July, Missouri River steamboat traffic was limited. As a result, soldiers were dispatched from Camp Cooke to other more strategic locations in the Montana Territory. Detachments from Camp Cooke guarded major transportation routes in Southwestern Montana, including the roads between Fort Benton and Helena. They built Fort Shaw along that route in 1867 in the Sun River Valley. Other detachments from Camp Cooke built Fort Ellis near Bozeman, Montana in the upper Gallatin Valley, which guarded the critical east-west over land route over Bozeman Pass. Camp Cooke was abandoned less than four years after it was built on March 31, 1870, in response to constant well-founded complaints that the location of the post was too remote.
The purpose of Camp (Fort) Cooke was to provide protection to Missouri River traffic and settlers in the Montana Territory who were traveling up the Missouri to the goldfields. Following the gold strikes at Bannack, 1862 (Grasshopper Gulch); Virginia City, 1863 (Alder Gulch); Helena, 1864 (Prickly Pear Creek and Last Chance Gulch); and the spectacular gold strikes in 1865 at the Montana Bar and other sites in Confederate Gulch, immigrants poured into the Montana Territory. The gold fields were in southwestern Montana, in the intermontane valleys. The immigrants had to cross the extensive eastern Montana plains, to reach the gold fields. The primary access route to the gold fields was up the Missouri River by steamboat to the head of navigation at Fort Benton. A secondary route for overland travelers was over the Bozeman Trail which branched off from the Oregon Trail in Wyoming Territory, skirted the eastern edge of the Big Horn Mountains after which the trail continued up the Yellowstone River valley to reach the Montana goldfields via the Bozeman Pass.
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Wikipedia