One local pleasure is to navigate the Cascade Mountains by car, stopping for fresh fruit in the Yakima Valley, tasting wines along the way, watching the Columbia River rise and fall, and seeing the wheat fields transforming from green to gold.
In the midst of these riches is an abandoned U.S. Army fort, one of two in our state (the other is Fort Walla Walla) that were constructed to “protect” white settlers in the 1850s and 1860s. Its name is Fort Simcoe.
Fort Simcoe, 20 miles south of Yakima at the end of State Highway 220, was originally an ancient camping area for tribes of the Yakima nation. It was sited around cold springs that bubble out of the ground (still bubbling) called Mool Mool. The name “Simcoe” likely derives from the tribal name Sim-Kwee, which describes the ridge around the nearby valley.
When disputes arose between the Yakima people and invading Euro-American visitors, sites were constructed by the U.S. Army. Simcoe seemed just right: fresh water, nearby timber, grasslands everywhere, and a relatively defendable location.
Construction of Fort Simcoe began on 8 August 1856 by companies G and F of the Ninth Infantry, led by Major Robert Seldon Garnett. Pine logs provided the basic building material. A sketch by Pvt. C.M. Schultz of Company G shows a large, gently sloping 420-foot square parade ground surrounded by more than 20 buildings. A slim flagpole towers over the north end of the grounds. Only five of the original buildings remain.
Among the surviving buildings are the Commanding Officer’s house and several others that appear to be in a time warp. They resemble English country houses, with wells, triangular pane windows and rose gardens surrounded by oak trees. These charming properties were designed by Louis Scholl, a clerk and draftsman at Fort Dalles, Oregon, who used Andrew Jackson Downing’s “Villa Farm House” as a model from Downing’s then-famous book, Architecture of Country Houses. Scholl noted that “a pack train of nearly 50 mules moved between Fort Dalles and Simcoe,” transporting building materials for these quaint structures.
From 1856 to 1859 Fort Simcoe served as a proper military base. In 1859 it was turned over to the Bureau of Indian Affairs as an Agency headquarters. A school was established, and trades were taught. The entire operation was then dominated by one of the territory’s most interesting figures, Methodist Episcopal missionary James Harvey Wilbur, known as “Father Wilbur.”
In 1853 Fort Simcoe was established as a Washington State Park under a 99-year lease from the Yakima nation. Picnic facilities, a large, manicured lawn, shade trees (mostly oak) and perfect view of the surrounding hills make Fort Simcoe a lonely, semi-secret resting place.
