Bleeding Kansas — Fort Scott's Frontier Fort & Border-War History

Ninety-odd miles south of Kansas City, the town of Fort Scott preserves one of the best-restored frontier military posts in the country and stands at the center of the violent 'Bleeding Kansas' era that rehearsed the Civil War. Established in 1842 to keep peace along the Permanent Indian Frontier, the fort was later swept into the guerrilla warfare between pro-slavery and free-state settlers in the 1850s, then reactivated as a Union supply depot during the Civil War. This day pairs the National Historic Site — a full complement of original and reconstructed 1840s buildings staffed with interpreters — with the handsome Victorian downtown and the solemn National Cemetery, one of the first in the nation. Lunch on the historic brick main street anchors the visit.