File:Soldiers Meadow Area.jpg
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...
Soldier's Meadow area - which is not the site of Camp McGarry (despite this marker)
- Uploaded by Gary Dee
Camera location | ![]() | View this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap | ![]() |
---|
Licensing
- You are free:
- to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work
- to remix – to adapt the work
- Under the following conditions:
- attribution – You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
- share alike – If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same or compatible license as the original.
![]() |
This image, originally posted to Flickr, was reviewed on February 10, 2011 by the administrator or reviewer File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske), who confirmed that it was available on Flickr under the stated license on that date. |