Fort Larned National Historic Site preserves Fort Larned which operated from 1859 to 1878.
The Camp on Pawnee Fork was established on October 22, 1859 to protect traffic along the Santa Fe Trail from hostile American Indians,. It was renamed Camp Alert in 1860, as the small garrison of about 50 men had to remain constantly alert for Indians. In May 1860 it was moved upstream, 3 miles (4.8 km) 30 miles to the west up the Pawnee Fork, and by the end of the month was renamed Fort Larned. It served the same purpose as Camp Alert and as an agency for the administration of the Central Plains Indians by the Bureau of Indian Affairs under the terms of the Fort Wise Treaty of 1861. The fort's service ended as a combination of the tribes' relocation to reservations and the completion of railroads across Kansas that ended the need for the Santa Fe Trail.
