Details

Collection Summary
Collection: 1952 - Frank Bennett Fiske
Folder: 0000
Item: 00005
Title: Headquarters of the Post, Cavalry Barracks and Guard House, Fort Yates (N.D.)
Date: 1905
Creator: Fiske, Frank Bennett,--1883-1952
Inscription/Marks: [in red gouache on negative] Head Quarters of the Post, Cavalry Barracks, Guard House. [Printed lower left on matted photograph] F. B. Fiske Fort Yates, N.Dak [with three arrow emblem] [History-Fort Yates] A primarily Native American settlement developed here after a US Army post at this site was established in 1863 as the Standing Rock Cantonment, intended for the US Army garrison to oversee the Hunkpapa and Blackfeet bands, and the Inhunktonwan and Cuthead of the Upper Yanktonai, of the Lakota Oyate. In 1878 the US Army renamed the fort to honor Captain George Yates, who was killed by the Lakota Oyate at the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876. The town that developed was also known as Fort Yates. The Army post and fort were decommissioned in 1903.Fort Yates also served as the headquarters of the US Standing Rock Indian Agency, which in the late 19th century was headed by US Indian Service Agent James McLaughlin. Worried about the Hunkpapa Lakota chief Sitting Bull possibly taking part in the Ghost Dance movement, he ordered the arrest of the chief on 14 December 1890. During the bungled event the chief was shot and killed at dawn in his log cabin by agency non-Hunkpapa Dakota police. Sitting Bull was buried at Fort Yates. In 1953, his family authorized his remains to be exhumed and transferred to a gravesite overlooking the Missouri River near his birthplace at Mobridge, South Dakota. A monument dedicated to Sitting Bull was installed at his burial site at Fort Yates. Another monument, with his bust on a pedestal, overlooks the Missouri River at the Mobridge burial site. This city has become the tribal headquarters of the federally recognized Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, whose reservation encompasses it. They founded Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, a tribal college now named for their noted 19th-century leader. Known also as "Long Soldier", it is the most populous electoral district of the reservation.
Summary: Distant view of the remains of the main buildings of Fort Yates Sioux County (N.D.), including the cavalry barracks, post headquarters and guard house. The cavalry barracks are missing their roof and much of the covered porch is gone in the middle of the building. Piles of lumber sit in the front of the buildings. Behind the building photo right is the water tower, and in the foreground is the flag pole for the fort.
Red ID: PH_I_15462 Image ID: 136206 Image Notes: 1952-00005

Collection: 1952 Digitized Images from Collection
Title: Frank Bennett Fiske
Date: 1880-1952

Summary: Includes prints and negatives of portraits, agriculture, education, wildlife, hunting, Frank Fiske studio portraits, and some views of South Dakota. Fiske’s Native American photographs include portraits, Indian gatherings and ceremonies, boarding schools, Indian houses and dwellings, and Native American agriculture. Fiske’s documentation of daily life on the reservation includes such shots as Sioux customers waiting for a Fort Yates trading store to open; a Sioux dance in the streets of Fort Yates; a plow issue before the agency boarding school; an encampment of tipis, including those traditionally painted; and three Indian men being taxied off the reservation to join the army in WWI.

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