Camp Cooke, Montana — History & Visitor Guide

Camp Cooke (Fergus County, Montana)

Fergus County · Montana · Indian Wars

Quick BriefCamp Cooke was established on July 10, 1866, just upstream from the mouth of the Judith River by the 13th Infantry Regiment. By the narrow margin of one month, Camp Cooke became the first U.S. Army post in the Montana Territory. The army established the post to protect steamboat traffic en route to Fort Benton, and 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. 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.

Coastal defense

History & Significance

Camp Cooke was named in honor of Brig. Gen. Philip St. George Cooke, who in 1866 was in command of the Department of the Platte, which then included the Montana Territory. The post was built of cottonwood logs in a classic quadrangular pattern by the First Battalion of the 13th Regiment of Infantry under Major William Clinton.

Log barracks for 1,000 men were built, using much adobe in their construction. A stockade surrounded the fort, trenched, and measured 500 feet by 600 feet.

By 1867 Camp Cooke had a strength of approximately 400 men. On May 17, 1868, Camp Cooke was attacked by Indians at a time when the post was shorthanded, as 100 troops had left for a summer camp on the Musselshell River.

With two companies under the command of Major William Clinton, the garrison held off the attack for six hours with the aid of several cannons. There was only one casualty among the troops, which was caused by an accident.

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. The Missouri Breaks have resisted settlement and so the site of Camp Cooke remains remote to this day.

The site cannot be easily visited. It can be reached by canoeing/floating down the river through the Missouri Breaks, in the section now designated a wild and scenic river and part of the Missouri Breaks National Monument.

The site of Camp Cooke is located at River Mile 86.8 Right. Today there are only the foundations of some of the buildings and the usual rubble that remains after buildings were taken away, torn down or simply deteriorated and fell in on themselves.

Key Facts

StateMontana

LocationFergus County

Established1866

Decommissioned1870

War / eraIndian Wars

Current statusRuins

Coordinates47.73277778, -109.6761111

Camp Cooke (Fergus County, Montana)

History & Significance

Key Facts

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