These buildings fell into private ownership and most of them were razed for the material that was in them. Four of the stone buildings are standing. The barracks was originally 23 by 154 feet in size, containing ten rooms for the accommodation of two companies of Infantry. The north half of this building was torn down and the material used in the construction of a house. The Oklahoma Historical Society purchased the remaining south half of the barracks building, the stone ammunition building, and the great brick oven, together with the land on which they stand. Considerable money was expended in the restoration of these buildings, and the barracks building is now occupied by a custodian and his family who will show the place to visitors. The most picturesque exhibit at Fort Gibson is the reconstructed log stockade built on the site of the first log fort. This work was directed by a commission created by the State of Oklahoma. The best-preserved relic of the old fort is the commanding officer’s residence, facing what was the parade ground of the fort. Colonel William Babcock Hazen came to command the fort in January 1871. He brought there his bride who, as his widow, was later to become the wife of the Spanish-American hero, Admiral George Dewey. Lieutenant Colonel John Joseph Coppinger, commandant of the fort, occupied the building in 1886 with his family. James G. Blaine, father of Mrs. Coppinger, visited his daughter in this residence and was confined there at one time by illness. The cornerstone of the building bears the inscription: “Erected A. D. 1867, A. S. Kimball, Capt. A. Q. M. U. S.” The story of Fort Gibson is an epic of the prairies; a tale of the winning of the great Southwest; an account of the conquest of the fleet warriors of the plains; a narrative of the security of trade and contact with old Santa Fe and California. Fort Gibson saw the beginning and the end of the keelboat and the whole career of the river steamboat. Unknown to the present generation, the old fort and the few relics of that venerable establishment that have escaped the hand of the vandal should still have a claim on our consideration. Around them cluster associations with the past and reminders of early attempts at the civilization of this western country. The activities of this frontier post, the toil and hardship, sickness and death endured there, the picturesqueness of its population, the pageantry of its activities and functions—all these are calculated to stir the imagination of the beholder and stimulate in him an interest in the fascinating history of this country. APPENDIX I _National Cemetery_