The Fort at the Edge of the World

Summer Season Episode 1

On a bluff above the Missouri River, 200 miles from the nearest American settlement, the United States built its largest military post in 1819. Nearly a thousand people called it home: soldiers, officers, families. They were sent to project American power into the frontier, hold back British fur traders, and keep the peace with the surrounding nations: the Pawnee, the Omaha, the Sioux, the Arikara. 

In this episode, we step inside the walls with Andrew, a living history re-enactor and Friend of Fort Atkinson, to get a feel for what daily life actually looked like. The rations. The whiskey. The discipline, the isolation, and the particular strangeness of being a soldier at the edge of the known American world.

And we leave you with a question. It was November 1819. A Nebraska winter is closing in. Something was about to go very, very wrong.

Find out next week (May 27, 2026) in Part 2. 

For photos, maps, and glimpses of the past, and a behind the scenes look at what we’re getting into this summer, follow @rootedintheplains on Instagram.

Plan Your Visit
Fort Atkinson's next living history weekend is June 6th and 7th, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Fort Atkinson State Historical Park, Fort Calhoun, Nebraska. Free with a Nebraska State Park entry permit.

Fort Atkinson State Historical Park — Nebraska Game & Parks

Friends of Fort Atkinson — fortatkinsononline.org

Want to Learn More
Johnson, Sally A. “The Sixth’s Elysian Fields: Fort Atkinson on the Council Bluffs.” Nebraska History 40 (1959): 1–38.

Wesley, Edgar Bruce. “Life at a Frontier Post: Fort Atkinson, 1823–1826.” Journal of the American Military Institute Vol. 3, No. 4 (Winter 1939): 202–209.

Diary of James Kennerly, 1823–1826. Missouri Historical Society Collections Vol. VI, No. 1 (1928).

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome back to Rooted in the Plains, a podcast about the people, places, and moments that shape the Great Plains. I'm Nicole, and if you're a return listener, welcome back. If you're new here, I'm so glad you found us. This summer, Rooted in the Plains is hitting the road. Instead of digging through the archives and books from my desk, I'm going out in the field, visiting the places where history actually happened, talking to the people who bring it to life, and taking you along with me. And we're kicking off the summer season at Fort Adkinson State Historical Park, just outside Fort Calhoun, about 20 miles north of Omaha. The next Living History Weekend is June 6th and 7th. Now, this isn't one of those places where someone in a flannel shirt points to a fence post and calls it historical. Fort Adkinson is the real deal. And knowing a bit about the story before you get there, it changes everything about how you experience it. Those aren't just buildings. Stop and think about the lives inside them, the soldiers inside the barracks, the men visiting the settler after payday, the Cooper building barrels in the shop. When you know the story, you see the people. So to help set the stage, I brought in a good friend who happens to be a literal friend of Fort Adkinson. That's a group of volunteers and patrons who dedicate their time and efforts to preserve and present the history and heritage of the fort in the most accurate and enjoyable way possible. Welcome, Andrew.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Hello. Hi, it's good to be here. This is my first podcast. Quite an honor.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

So Fort Adkinson was established in November 1819 on a bluff above the Missouri River. It was the absolute western edge of American power, 200 miles from the nearest American settlement. At its peak, it was the largest American military post in the entire country, with nearly 1,000 people calling it home. Its mission? To project American authority into the frontier, push back British fur traders, and maintain peace with surrounding nations, the Pawnee, the Omaha, the Sioux, and the Ericara. And now here's what gets me. These men were sent to the edge of the known American world, and most people today have never even heard of it. I remember when you started talking about going to the fort, and you've spent a lot of time on that bluff. How would you describe it, especially in those early hours of the day when it's what most of those people 200 years ago would have experienced?

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Okay, for me as a volunteer, I get to spend a lot more time outside of visitor hours at the fort. And what immediately comes to mind is one day when I was there, it was kind of a misty, rainy day and fog was rolling in, and it was just kind of this creepy, ominous look. But it was amazing. There was the sound of the blacksmiths clanking away in the background. There was the sound of soldiers drilling and marching and the smell of uh roaring campfire. It was just a sensory overload, so close to what would have actually happened there. The the clouds and the fog kind of drowned out any of the noises from airplanes. You couldn't see the Omaha skyline. It was amazing.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

That sounds so cool. Let's talk about food because I think what people assume Frontier soldiers would have had would have been like buffalo every day. What would they actually have eaten?

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Okay. Some big brains back in Washington got together and decided what the soldier would be issued. So on paper, every American soldier was issued 18 ounces of flour, a pound or 20 ounces of pork, usually salted, very rarely fresh, and one gill of whiskey. So a gill's about half a cup.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Yeah. But you notice what's missing from the ration: any provision for fruits or vegetables. Sure. So this caused problems, as you can imagine. So okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

So I have to ask about the whiskey because when I was going through the records on this place, I could not believe how much whiskey was involved.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Right. Yeah, you think about it. At Fort's Height, there was a thousand soldiers, and every soldier was getting a jill of whiskey per day. It was a colossal amount of whiskey.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

That just seems insane.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Yeah. But to me, it's strange that in a place where it was so hard to get supplies and you needed to be self-sufficient and just create food, they were spending all that extra time and energy, all the grain needed to make whiskey. It just seems kind of like a frivolous waste. But the soldiers loved it and they also considered it medicinal.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Because yeah, you would think they could have used the grain for other things.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Bread. Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

One other fact on the whiskey ration. First hand accounts we have like a main source of information for the living historians up at Fort Atkinson is the court-martial records. And as you're reading through these, you start to notice a theme. 90% of the infractions are alcohol related. It's kind of interesting that in the 1830s, following the abandonment of Fort Atkinson, the liquor ration went away and it was replaced by coffee. So I like to think Fort Atkinson and the soldiers' shenanigans had something to do with it.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

That could be. Okay, so kind of on that same thing. So what happened when things got out of hand? What did discipline actually look like?

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Okay, a lot of times it looked like a forfeiture of pay. Um there were also forms of capital punishment. There were things like ball and chain being attached. They had this weird kind of a yoke collar thing that the soldier would have to wear around. It was heavy and cumbersome. There was a jail cell, but by far the most feared and hated punishment was taking away the liquor ration.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Well, if that was their medicine, I mean if it kept them healthy.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Medicine.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Oh, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Entertainment.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Everything.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Okay, so then kind of on that same line, if it was entertainment, um, so these men are 200 miles from the nearest American settlement. There's no way really to leave. So what kind of things does one person do in that type of isolation?

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Right, right. This is a common thread throughout soldiering from the very beginning all the way up to now. Boredom. What do you do? And when your only form of relaxation is a jilla whiskey at the end of the day, there's really just not a whole lot to look forward to. There was a post library, so the soldiers were encouraged to read. However, literacy rates of the era were much lower than they are now, so that might not have always been an option. But your guess is as good as mine. There's not a lot of information about leisure time. A lot of soldiers joined the army for adventure. They wanted to go to some far-off post and see a new exotic land and have the excitement of being a soldier. And they found themselves stationed at Fort Atkinson, and their primary duty was farming. So a lot of soldiers were upset about that.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Oh, there's I mean, yeah, I guess if you're gonna be told you're going to the edge of the American frontier.

SPEAKER_00 7:23

The edge of civilization, yeah. I think there's a degree of danger and excitement to that. Right. Glorified farmers.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

Ah, well. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

So if there's one thing that surprises people when you tell them when they visit Fort Atkinson, Okay, the first thing that comes to mind for me, that the one thing that I tell them that elicits the the biggest wow response is the sleeping arrangement. And how tiny the bunks were, how crowded the barracks would have been. Back then, the landscape was different. There it was not as heavily wooded as it is now, which means that there were fewer trees. Wood was used for everything from cooking to firing up the stills from create the liquor ration down to heating the barracks. And they would have to send work parties for days in either direction from the fort to get enough wood to heat the place and do all these other necessary tasks. So the bunks and the rooms are small in part to kind of conserve heat, but the bunks are not much wider than a twin-size mattress. Actually, they're probably thinner than a twin-size mattress. But the soldiers slept two to a bunk head to toe. And when when people see this, they they can't imagine. They look like a single-person sleeping arrangement, but there's actually two men in there. And this was done to double up blankets and get the benefit of body heat.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Before we wrap up today, if you didn't write down the details about the Living History Weekend coming up, Andrew will give you a few more details because if you can tell, this is not a walk around and read the sign kind of experience. Andrew, do you want to tell them a little bit about the next one?

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Sure. Our next weekend is June 6th and 7th, and our season runs from May to October. The Living History weekends are always the first weekend of the month. It's a special after-hours thing where the fort's lit up by candles, and there's usually a scenario, and you're led through and you get to see the fort at night, which if you come out during the normal volunteer hours, you it's during the day, so you don't get to see it like that. It's it's pretty special. But if you do come out during the day on a Living History weekend, what you're gonna see is soldiers marching around and drilling. You're gonna hear musket fire. Um, you'll hear the blacksmiths pounding away in the in the shop. We have a tinsmith on site. You could get a cup made for yourself to commemorate your visit. Um, there's a cooper, there's weavers and spinners, people making butter, there's school kids running around. Everybody's favorite crowd pleaser. The cannon. The cannons fired promptly at the beginning of the duty day, 10 o'clock, once at noon, and then once at the end of the day, which we call retreat, round four.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Starts at 10 and then ends at four. Does it cost anything?

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Nope, you just need a valid park permit.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Yeah, and it's just kind of on the edge of Fort Calhoun, up by Omaha.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

Can't miss it. Just listen for the cannon fire.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

I'm planning on visiting on Saturday. I'm gonna talk to the residents at the fort, people who actually make this place run. So make sure you check out Instagram for those interviews and some live Instagram stories and follow along on Rooted at the Plains so you don't miss any of it. So I hope to see you there. Now, I mentioned that Fort Adkinson was the largest military post in the country. Nearly a thousand people calling this bluff home. We talked today about the food, the whiskey, the isolation. Here's what I'm gonna leave you with. It was November 1819. The barracks had just been finished. Winter was coming, and the soldiers had their rations: salted pork, hardtack, and whiskey. No fresh vegetables, no fruit. A Nebraska winter closing in. Something was about to go very, very wrong. Thanks for listening to Rooted in the Plains. If you enjoyed this episode, come back next week for part two. Trust me, it gets interesting. And if you want to dig a little deeper, you could always call Andrew. His number is or I've listed the sources in the show notes if you prefer to look at your history in print. For photos, maps, and behind the scenes look at what we're getting into this summer. Follow along on Instagram at Rooted in the Plains. Until then, stay rooted.