Fort Kearny Adobe Storehouse
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
Images
Artist's Rendering of Fort Kearny 1849. Arrow points to the adobe storehouse
Adobe Storehouse outline aerial
Daniel P. Woodbury, 6th District Inspector
Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
At the southeast corner was the largest building at Fort Kearny in 1852, the massive adobe storehouse. The storehouse was built to accommodate the necessary quartermaster and commissary supplies. It was a low one story thick sod walled building with a nearly flat roof covered in sheet lead and a few inches of earth.
Fort Kearny was used as a supply depot for many of the posts further west. According to law, the commissary was also empowered to sell provisions at government cost prices, which was about one-third of the ordinary price, to persons whose requisitions were approved by the post commander. Due to this, the storehouse at the fort always had on hand a large quantity of various supplies, as there were many people traveling the emigrant trails that either by improvidence or accident, ran out of supplies. Even though the commanders were careful about approving orders, there were large numbers of persons whose requests seemed just, so the sales were constant. The amount of supplies needed was large, to provide for any emergency that might arise at Fort Kearny or another post.
By March of 1858 the adobe storehouse was falling apart and was no longer useable. Immediate construction of two new storehouses was proposed. The new quartermaster and commissary warehouses were built in 1859 and placed some distance to the north of the parade ground. Subsequent plans of the post show the barracks on the former site of the adobe storehouse.
Sources
Roger T Grange Jr, “Digging at Fort Kearny,” Nebraska History 44 (1963): 101-121
Mantor, Lyle E. "The History of Fort Kearny." Ph.D. diss., 1938.
Woodbury to Totten, August 2, 1848. Publications of the Nebraska State Historical Society, Volume XXI, 1930, p. 257.