THE LOST TREASURE OF
FORT HOLMES
THE LONGEST LIST OF THE LONGEST STUFF AT THE LONGEST DOMAIN NAME AT LONG LAST

Where is the lost treasure of Fort Holmes?

Fort Holmes was a military outpost in 1834 located in Oklahoma Indian Territory on the South Canadian River.

This fort has throughout history, caused much debating on where it is actually located, who lived there, and what went on. Historians have their own ideas on all these answers, however, no one has actually hunted in the area where the fort was suppose to be located to arrive at any of the answers.

The land where the fort is believed to have been has never been cultivated or cleared; anything that was left by the residents is still there waiting to be discovered.

The information gathered from the Oklahoma Historical Society states that the location of Fort Holmes is close by the junction of Little River and the Canadian River, which would put the fort close to what is today, Holdenville, Oklahoma. Under the direct command of Lieutenant T. H. Holmes, the fort was built in 1834 and it was home to two companies of infantry and was used by several troops passing through this rugged Indian Territory. However, even this information is in disagreement.

As one reads all the documents and history books, the location of Fort Holmes becomes more and more mysterious. One person will describe an area in Oklahoma during the 1800’s and place Fort Holmes in one location while another will place the rivers in question in different locations with different names. As an example, Washing Irving and his party were traveling through Oklahoma in 1832. They recorded their day-to-day activities. In Irving’s writings, he states that on October 31, the party camped overnight on Little River close by the Canadian River. Then the account went on to say that the next day they had to cross two swollen rivers, which were North Fork and Deep Creek. The North Fork is close to the present day town of Lexington, Oklahoma that is in Cleveland County. Deep Creek, however, is around 100 miles apart and is close to the present day town of Holdenville, Oklahoma in Hughes County. During 1832, it would have been impossible to travel that far in one day, a normal traveling day was around 15 miles.

Other tales of the whereabouts of Fort Holmes become even more confusing since there were two Fort Holmes in the area and two trading posts near the forts with the same name of Cbouteau’s Trading Post.

Josiah Gregg gave the location of the fort in his book Commerce of the Prairies close by a spring, latitude 350 5’, a mile north of the Canadian River. This would put Fort Holmes closer to Purcell, Oklahoma.

No matter, where the exact location of Fort Holmes might be, if a treasure hunter had the time, it is possible to use a metal detector and search these areas. Who knows what you might uncover, treasures of the past just waiting to be found.

 

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