Historic Fort Supply was established on November 18, 1868, as
"Camp Supply" for a winter campaign against the Southern Plains
tribes in what is now western Oklahoma. From this post, Lt. Col.
George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh U. S. Cavalry marched
south to the Washita River Valley and attacked the Cheyenne
village of Chief Black Kettle. This event marked the beginning
of the end for the Southern Plains tribe's nomadic way of life
because they were soon forced onto reservations. The military
presence in the region was felt for the next twenty-five years
as troops from the post performed peace-keeping duties
monitoring the Cheyenne and Arapaho reservation. Camp Supply was
the site of the first Cheyenne-Arapaho Agency in 1869-1870.
Soldiers patrolled the Cheyenne- Arapaho Reservation and the
Cherokee Outlet in an effort to contain the tribesmen and keep
out trespassers. Buffalo hunters, timber and horse thieves,
whiskey peddlers, and "Boomers" were a continual threat to
stability in the Indian Territory. Th