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March 2025
“Third Indian Home Guard” living history program
The Fort Gibson Historic Site’s Saturday living history programs in February and March will be centered on the Union Third Indian Home Guard and how they performed daily maintenance on their firearms, uniforms, and other equipment. The Third Indian Home Guard were mostly recruited from pro-Union Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole tribal members who joined the Union army from refugee camps in Kansas. When the Civil War began, Indian Territory quickly fell under Confederate control, forcing pro-Union Indians to flee…
Find out more »April 2025
Spring Bake Day
The aroma of freshly baked bread will fill the Fort Gibson Historic Site once again. The site’s annual spring bake day is scheduled for Saturday, April 12, from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Staff members will operate the oven throughout the day, with fresh loaves of bread available around noon and at 3:30 p.m. Twice each year, OHS staff act as historical reenactors and bake bread in Fort Gibson’s original wood-fired oven from 1863. Spring Bake Day is an educational event that…
Find out more »May 2025
Fort Gibson Education Day
The Fort Gibson Historic Site will host its annual Education Day on Friday, May 9, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. One day a year, the Fort Gibson Historic Site is closed to all but Oklahoma’s young scholars for a fun-filled day of education! Fort Gibson Historic Site staff, living historians, and volunteers will demonstrate skills, crafts, and trades that enabled people to thrive in 19th-century Indian Territory. Registered schools can expect to see demonstrations of daily life in the…
Find out more »Luck is a Fortune: Adventure, Duty, and Buffalo on the 1841 Frontier book signing and discussion with author Dr. Robert Pickering
On Saturday, April 19, at 1 p.m., the Fort Gibson Historic Site will host a book signing for the title Luck is a Fortune: Adventure, Duty, and Buffalo on the 1841 Frontier (2024) with author Dr. Robert Pickering.
Luck is a Fortune recounts the adventures and excursions of two soldiers living at an outpost in eastern Oklahoma in the 1840s. The title is derived from a note one of them scribbled in his diary – “luck is a fortune” – a fitting thought as life on the Plains meant death could come from any direction; one learned survival skills or faced death.
“This book is the result of an extraordinary coincidence,” Pickering said. “The University of Tulsa holds two diaries written by soldiers stationed at Fort Gibson in 1841. One was written by a young lieutenant who was a West Point graduate and the son of wealthy Southern planter family, while the other diary was written by a maker of hats in New York and probably an Irish immigrant – two very different people living on America’s westernmost outpost in 1841.”
The book signing will take place in the Fort Gibson Hospital Visitor Center located at 803 North Garrison Avenue, Fort Gibson.
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