Nestled between the banks of the Washita River and Wild Horse Creek, with the Arbuckle Mountains to the south, lay Fort Arbuckle, a remote outpost in the middle of Indian Territory. Established on April 19, 1851, the fort was in operation for less than 20 years.

But near the end of that two-decade period, the fort helped launch the legendary Chisholm Trail.

The fort was intended to protect civilized Indian tribes -- forced to move here by President Andrew Jackson's government from their own lands back East -- from depradations of the "uncivilized" Indians who resented these latest trespassers. It was abandoned to the Confederate forces during the Civil War, then was reoccupied after the war by the U.S. Army's "Buffalo Soldiers."

In 1867, Col. O.W. Wheeler and his two partners, Wilson and Hicks, arrived at Fort Arbuckle with a herd of 2,400 longhorns they had acquired in Texas. They wanted to drive the cattle to California.

Wayne Gard, in his book The Chisholm Trail, said Wheeler and his companions had "more than a hundred cow ponies, and fifty-four Texas trail hands armed with Colt six-shooters and the new Henry repeating rifles ..." in addition to the 2,400 longhorns. They were fully prepared for whatever they might face -- or were they?

Numerous trails criss-cross the West. Buffalo followed seasonal routes, north in the summer and south in the winter. Indians, settlers, prospectors, military troops -- all had their own trails and used those of others. The Dona Ana Trail, a route from Fort Smith, Ark., to Santa Fe, reportedly crossed through the Fort Arbuckle region. Wagon trains had already carried emigrants this way toward the gold fields of California. The route should have been clear. Presumably the trio from California could have used that trail to head west -- through Kiowa, Comanche and Apache territories, of course -- if they had wanted to. They had ponies, weapons and men sufficient, one might think, to see them through.

By happenstance, William "Buffalo Bill" Mathewson was at Fort Arbuckle when the herd arrived. He had rescued a couple of captives from the Comanches and come south to return them to their parents in Texas. He agreed to show the cattlemen the way to a trading post on the Canadian River, operated by a man named Jesse Chisholm.

From there, the herd could follow wagon tracks left by Chisholm's freight wagons, all the way to a village on the Arkansas River in Kansas, called Wichita after Indians who had camped there to avoid involvement in Civil War action farther south. The herd went from there to Abilene following a trail Joseph G. McCoy had hired surveyors to mark.

Don Worcester, in his book The Chisholm Trail -- High Road of the Cattle Kingdom, says Wheeler planned to winter the cattle in Kansas, then drive them west through South Pass to California. But when they reached Abilene, his partners balked at the prospect of driving the herd any farther, and the longhorns were shipped to slaughterhouses in Chicago for consumption back East.

As word spread that there was now a relatively safe route to a dependable market, other cattle herds were turned to follow the same route Col. Wheeler's herd used. The Chisholm Trail was born.

As for Fort Arbuckle, the midwife so to speak, its days were numbered. Three years after the 2,300 longhorns passed by, the fort was abandoned. Fort Sill had been established farther west, and the troops were transferred there.

All that remains of Fort Arbuckle today is a chimney from the officers' quarters, now part of a home built there later. A flagpole stands on the old parade grounds, and an old historical marker is partially obscured on State Highway 7 nearby.

The Arbuckle Historical Museum in Davis, Oklahoma, has a scale model of the fort on display.