File:Soldiers Meadow area.jpg

Nevada Historical Marker 162 - A controversy

Camp McGarry Camp McGarry here on the old Applegate Trail was an Army fort manned from 1865 to 1868.

Troops protected the Idaho-California mail and stage roads and the nearby trails in Nevada and Oregon.

Officers' quarters, mess hall, barracks and a 100-horse stone barn were constructed 12 miles south of the fort.

In 1866, Camp McGarry was made headquarters of the District of Nevada. In autumn, 1868, troops were moved to Camp Winfield Scott, north of Paradise, Nevada; and Camp McGarry, largest military reservation in Nevada, comprising 75 square miles, was abandoned.

In 1871, the land was relinquished for use as an Indian reservation.

Text-related Issues:

1. The word fort is inaccurate. The post was a camp (Rhulen, 1964, Early Forts of Nevada. Nevada Historical Society Quarterly 7:3-4, 44-45). Historic and modern maps also refer to it as such.

2. The land was not relinquished for use as an Indian reservation in 1871. The military reserve was transferred from the War Department to the Interior Department in 1871. The Indian reservation was established in 1913.

Location Issue:

1.The Nevada State Historic Preservation Offices placement of Nevada Historical Marker 162 at Soldier Meadows Ranch, Summit Lake, south of State Route 293 (http://nevadaculture.org/docs/shpo/markers/mark_162.htm) is problematic: the Camp was at Summit Lake and Soldier Meadows Ranch is not at Summit Lake.

2. Rhulen notes, Camp McGarry was located at Summit Springs, near Summit Lake....

3. Historic U.S. land survey plats, commercial and official Nevada State maps all place the site of Camp McGarry at Summit Lake, approximately 10 miles northeast of Soldier Meadows. None of these maps indicate any military reserve at Soldier Meadows (Figures 1-3a).

4. Effie Mona Mack (1936, Nevada: A History Of The State From Earliest Times Through The Civil War, 324) notes, Later a number of stone buildings were erected some distance south of Camp McGarry for the men, officers, and soldiers at Soldier Meadows. The statement, upon careful reading, supports the contention that the Camp was not at Soldier Meadows but is probably one of the bases for the later designation of Soldier Meadows as the site of the historic Camp.

The Resolution:

1. Conform the markers text to history.

2. Relocate the marker to an appropriate location near Summit Lake.

Source blackrockdesert.org/friends/news/2008/camp-mcgarry-histor...