The Things They Left Behind

The Things They Left Behind. . Although the fort was abandoned and its buildings sold or dismantled in the 1890s, objects found during archaeological digs at Fort Randall nearly a century later provided clues to daily life at this and other frontier posts. Apart from building foundations, many of the artifacts were small items such as pipe fragments, slate pencils, pocketknife blades, bullets, buttons, and buckles., Captions: , Buttons and pipes similar to these were found where the guardhouse had stood., When several archaeological digs were done at Fort Randall in the 1980s and 1990s, artifacts from the rebuilt fort were found deposited in layers directly above those from the original log-cabin fort., The foundations of several fort buildings were excavated during archaeological digs., Book pages: , In September 1913 I visited Sioux City. There I found a large and prosperous city where there had been only a wilderness in 1855., I was seized with a strong desire to revisit my old posts. I traveled by train and boat to Fort Pierre, where I had arrived 58 years ago. I found the Missouri River just as muddy and treacherous for navigation as of yore., Not a stick remained of the old fort. It had left no mark save a depression in the ground where a cellar had been. As I gazed upon this changed scene, I thought of the time when I had seen the plain dotted with the tepees of thousands of Indians who had assembled at that very spot to sign a treaty with General Harney.