Fort Wingate

Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox military installation Template:Infobox NRHP

File:Apache Scouts.jpg

Apache Scouts visiting Fort Wingate during the 1880s.

Fort Wingate was a military installation near Gallup, New Mexico, United States. There were two other locations in New Mexico called Fort Wingate: Seboyeta (1849–1862) and San Rafael (1862–1868).<ref>San Rafael is at Template:Coord.</ref> The most recent Fort Wingate (1868–1993) was established at the former site of Fort Lyon, on Navajo territory, initially to control and "protect" the large Navajo tribe to its north. The fort at San Rafael was the staging point for the Navajo deportation known as the Long Walk of the Navajo. From 1870 onward the garrison near Gallup was concerned with Apaches to the south, and through 1890 hundreds of Navajo Scouts were enlisted at the fort.

Fort Wingate supplied 100 tons of Composition B high explosives to the Manhattan Project for use in the first Trinity test and became an ammunition depot "Fort Wingate Depot Activity" from World War II until it was closed by the 1993 Base Realignment and Closure Commission. Environmental cleanup of UXO, perchlorate, and lead as well as land transfer continue to the present day.

The Fort Wingate Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The associated community was first listed as the Fort Wingate census-designated place in 2020, with a population of 328 during the 2020 census.<ref name="Census 2020">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

HistoryEdit

Ojo del Oso (in Spanish meaning "Eye of the Bear" or "Bear Spring") was a Navajo place visited for good grazing and water.

19th centuryEdit

1849: A hay camp was set up near Seboyeta, New Mexico and was called Fort Wingate.<ref name="NMForts">Fort Wingate @NewMexicoHistory.org</ref> It was named for Major Benjamin Wingate, 5th U.S. Infantry, who died on 1 June 1862 from wounds he received during the Battle of Valverde.<ref name=frazier>Template:Cite book</ref>
1860: Fort Fauntleroy was established at Bear Springs (Ojo del Oso) as an outpost of Fort Defiance. Colonel Thomas T. Fauntleroy named the fort for himself.<ref name="NMForts"/>
- 1861: Fort Fauntleroy was renamed Fort Lyon for Brig. Gen. Nathaniel Lyon, a Unionist, when Fauntleroy left New Mexico to join the Provisional Army of Virginia after the state seceded from the Union. Fort Lyon was closed on 10 September 1861 at the start of the Civil War.<ref name="NMForts"/>
1862: Fort Wingate was moved near a large spring at San Rafael, New Mexico, also known as "Bikyaya" or "El Gallo" (the rooster).<ref name=frazier/><ref name="NMForts"/> It was designed to house four companies of troops.
- 1864: Edward Canby ordered Colonel Kit Carson to bring four companies of the First New Mexico Volunteers to the fort to "control" the Navajo.
- 1864–1866: It was the staging point for the Navajo deportation known as the Long Walk of the Navajo.
- 1865: The New Mexico Military District had 3,089 troops, 135 of them at Fort Wingate.
1868: Fort Wingate was moved back to the former site of Fort Lyon at Ojo del Oso.<ref>James H. Defouri, Historical Sketch of the Catholic Church in New Mexico (1887) p. 81</ref>
- 1868: Navajo people returning from Bosque Redondo were temporarily settled at the Oso Del Ojo Fort Wingate before spreading out into the newly established Navajo Reservation.
- 1873–1886: The fort's troops participated in Apache Wars with troops and recruited Navajo Scouts.
- 1878: Fort Wingate had 137 troops.

File:Lt. Cornelius C. Smith 1895.jpg

In 1895 Second Lieutenant Cornelius C. Smith, a Medal of Honor recipient, posed with his favorite horse, Blue, in front of his quarters.

- 1868–1895: Fort Wingate troops often settled disagreements between Navajo and "citizens" in New Mexico.
- 1891: Fort Wingate troops assisted Arizona units against angry Hopis.

20th centuryEdit

1907: Two troops of the 5th Cavalry went from Fort Wingate to the Four Corners area after some armed Navajo. This was the last armed expedition the US Government made against the Navajo. One Navajo was killed and the rest escaped.Template:Citation needed
1911: A Ft. Wingate company of cavalry went to Chaco Canyon and camped there several days to quell a possible uprising by Navajo.
1914: During the Mexican Civil War over 2,000 Mexican soldiers and their families took refuge at the fort.
1918: Fort Wingate focus turned from Navajo to World War I.
1940: Fort Wingate became an ammunition depot from World War II until 1993.
1944: Fort Wingate supplied 100 tons of Composition B high explosives to the Manhattan Project for use in the first Trinity test.
1950: Bureau of Indian Affairs was given part of the polluted land for an Indian boarding school.
1960–67: Redstone and Pershing 1 missiles were tested among others at Wingate.
1971: DoD Placed Fort Wingate on reserve and re-designated as "Fort Wingate Depot Activity" or FWDA.<ref>About FWDA, n.d. retrieved 17 June 2017</ref>
1988: the Base Realignment and Closure round 1 decided to close the Fort.
Environmental restoration activities at FWDA began in 1989.<ref name=IAP/>Template:Rp
January 1993: the Base Realignment and Closure Act (BRAC) closed the post.

21st centuryEdit

Though the fort's mission ended, the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) continues to use 6,465 acres for launching target rockets to White Sands Missile Range (WSMR).<ref name=IAP>FY2016 Fort Wingate Depot Activity Base Realignment & Closure Installation Action Plan 29 November 2016, 41 pp</ref>Template:Rp
In December 2005, the New Mexico Environment Department (NMED) issued the Army a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Permit.<ref name=IAP/>Template:Rp
As of 2016, FWDA spread across 21,131 acres, occupied 15,280 acres of land and a BRAC acreage of 14,666.<ref name=IAP/>Template:Rp
Environmental cleanup and land transferTemplate:When to the surrounding community continues to the present, through at least 2022. 5,854 acres have already been transferred to the Department of Interior.<ref name=IAP/>Template:Rp Explosives, perchlorates and nitrates are the primary contaminant in the northern groundwater plumes which have not migrated off-post, all other sites consist of relatively minor soil or building contamination without groundwater issues but with explosives, SVOCs, and metals like lead.<ref name=IAP/>Template:Rp

GeographyEdit

Fort Wingate is in western McKinley County, with the inhabited portion located Template:Convert by road east-southeast of Gallup, the county seat. New Mexico State Road 400 runs through the community, leading north Template:Convert to Interstate 40 and south Template:Convert to McGaffey.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Fort Wingate census-designated place has an area of Template:Convert, all land.<ref name="CenPopGazetteer2024"/> The area drains north toward the South Fork of the Puerco River, part of the Little Colorado River watershed.

EducationEdit

There are two Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) boarding schools in the area: Wingate Elementary School,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and Wingate High School.

Template:Asof the Wingate Elementary dormitory is a former military barracks that also houses students at Wingate High.<ref>Template:Cite news - Clipping from Newspapers.com.</ref> In 1968 the girls' dormitory had 125 girls; the Associated Press stated that the dormitory lacked decoration and personal effects and was reflective of a campaign to de-personalize Native American students. At the time the school strongly discouraged students from speaking Navajo and wanted them to only speak English.<ref>Template:Cite news - Clipping from Newspapers.com.</ref> Circa 1977 it opened a 125-student $90,000 building which used a solar heating system.<ref>Template:Cite news - Clipping from Newspapers.com.</ref>

The non-BIE school district is Gallup-McKinley County Public Schools.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> It is zoned to Indian Hills Elementary School, Kennedy Middle School, and Hiroshi Miyamura High School.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }} - KML files: Elementary boundaries and locations, Middle boundaries and locations, and High boundaries and locations.</ref>

Notable peopleEdit

Lt. Charles B. Gatewood (1853–1896) led many patrols out of Wingate and later convinced Geronimo to surrender
1881–85 General Douglas MacArthur lived at the fort as an infant, with his father, a Captain in command of Company K, 13th US Infantry.
1889–90 General John J. (Black Jack) Pershing served as Lieutenant at the fort.