Fort Reno. On Route 66 in Oklahoma last month.
While driving across Oklahoma during week two of the Route 66 road trip I did a stop at historic Fort Reno near El Reno.
It is a former United States Army cavalry post dating back to 1874 and the Indian Wars. Among the units stationed there over the years were the famed Buffalo Soldiers.
During World War II, it was a prisoner of war camp for German and Italian prisoners of war; the fort’s chapel (in the pictures) was built by members of the German Afrika Korps. In 1949, the US Army transferred the site to the US Department of Agriculture. It is now used as its Grazinglands Research Laboratory.
I drove out to the military cemetery adjoining the fort. Behind the main cemetery is a separate area within a walled enclosure containing the graves of the Germans and Italians who died during their time as prisoners of war. Someone had placed flowers on the Italian war graves.
Read more about Fort Reno here.
