Blockhouse on Signal Mountain

About this property

Blockhouse on Signal Mountain is within the Fort Sill Military Reservation, north of Lawton, Oklahoma. The rock architecture is located along Mackenzie Hill Road at the summit of Signal Mountain within the Fort Sill West Range being the Oklahoma administrative division of Comanche County. In May 1868, the United States Cavalry reservation was entitled Camp Wichita as situated within the mixed grass prairie meadow of Medicine Bluffs. The blockhouse was established in 1871 pursuant to the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867 cordially looming over the course of time as the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Opening of 1901. The stone structure was constructed on the summit of Wichita Mountain's Signal Mountain encompassing a terrestrial elevation of 1,750 feet (530 m). The shelter has a dimension of 14 feet (4.3 m) by 16 feet (4.9 m) with a structural exterior consisting of native stone collected within the vicinity of the Wichita Mountains. The four wall dwelling was erected as some of the first limestone architecture as part of Fort Sill's Old Post Corral or United States Army Quartermaster Corps fortification foraged during the American Indian Wars on the American frontier. The observation post was settled as a meteorological observatory and signal station. The elevated station provided support for military communications between Signal Mountain, Medicine Bluffs, Mountain Scott, and Fort Reno geographically positioned north of the Canadian River within the Great Plains. The Fort Sill, Indian Territory signal station officially commenced atmospheric observations and telegraphic communications on June 23, 1875 with meteorological reports beginning on September 9, 1875. The Army Signal Corps employed flag semaphore, heliograph, and signal lamp before implementing the signal field wire lines enabling electric telegraphic communications. The optical communication applied visible light along a visual topographical line of sight for distant information exchange. The semaphore communications served as an intelligence assessment of the Wichita Mountains cadastre while safeguarding the transcontinental railroad and territorial prairie trails as an integration of the Westward Expansion Trails. The mountainous altitude served as an observation of the Plains Indians equine flights disrupting the manifest destiny of westbound wagon trains ostracizing the Reconstruction era at the crest of the progressive Gilded Age. The high ground outpost continually anticipated the spontaneous mobilization of the Old Post Redoubt troops into the rugged terrain of southwestern Indian Territory. The geology of Oklahoma elevation features an area reconnaissance potentially revealing the disturbance of the prairie by American Indian horse herds and bison hunting. The disquietude of the plains territory is reciprocative to the Oklahoma red beds and the shortgrass prairie of the Apache, Comanche, and Kiowa lands within Southwestern Oklahoma.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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