{"id":926,"slug":"fort-scott-national-historic-site-kansas","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Fort Scott was built to enforce a promise the country broke. The 1842 dragoon post on the Kansas frontier was part of the 'permanent Indian frontier' line — the forts meant to keep settlers out of Indian Territory forever. Within a decade the promise was dead: the Army escorted settlers west anyway, the post was abandoned in 1853, and the buildings sold at auction became the nucleus of the town.","Then the fort became Bleeding Kansas's diagram — the town proslavery, the countryside free-state, and on the old parade ground itself the two factions facing off: the officers' quarters turned into the 'Free State Hotel,' the infantry barracks across the square become the proslavery Western Hotel. James Montgomery's free-state raiders hit the town; the border war ran through the old fort's streets.","The Army came back for the war — Fort Scott a Union supply depot and refugee camp — and the post survived into the railroad era before preservation gathered it back. The restored site holds the whole arc: the frontier promise, the two hotels glaring at each other across the parade ground, the supply depot, and the buildings that watched Kansas bleed before it was a state.","Fort Scott is the archive's divided file — the 1842 frontier post whose buildings became a Bleeding Kansas town, where the Free State Hotel and the proslavery Western Hotel faced each other across the old parade ground."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Fort Scott National Historic Site is the archive's two-hotels file — the 1842 Indian-frontier fort that became a Kansas town split between the Free State and Western hotels during Bleeding Kansas, then a Union depot in the war.","A fort that split in two keeps its parade ground — the file's suggestion being that Fort Scott's hold is the square: the ground where the nation's division stood in two hotels facing each other across the abandoned fort's lawn."]}],"name":"Fort Scott National Historic Site","aliases":[],"type":"HISTORIC_SITE","type_label":"Historic Site","cats":["DARK_HISTORY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD_HISTORY","AFRICAN_AMERICAN_HISTORY","HISTORIC_SITE","MILITARY","UNDERGROUND_RAILROAD"],"groups":["dark-history","historic-sites"],"desc":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","full_desc":"Fort Scott National Historic Site is a historic site in Fort Scott, Kansas, a National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing. NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad. HauntHunt files it with dark history, Underground Railroad history and the Underground Railroad. The dossier holds 2 documented facts — the record is history-forward, no paranormal claims on file. The site is open to visitors.","address":"1 Old Fort Boulevard","city":"Fort Scott","county":"Bourbon","state":"Kansas","postal":null,"region":"Midwest","lat":37.828,"lon":-94.704141,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":"NPS public listing access field: Yes. This is a listing snapshot; current arrangements still require confirmation.","ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":"National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing","current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 25KS01, source row 455. Inclusion concerns slavery, freedom-seeking and resistance history; no haunting is inferred. City, coordinates and detailed history are not inferred from the name. The source Year Established field is not treated as year built/opened. ","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":62.1,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.35,"identity_confidence":0.85,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":1,"paranormal_claim_provenance":null,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[],"history":[{"description":"NPS includes this site in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. A documented site gives the file real substance; this entry is part of that record. The record holds it as fact — documented, not retold. 'Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01' documents the entry. It's the sort of fact that gives the haunting reports their context.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01","url":"https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/sortable_dataset/undergroundrailroad/F0E29766-00A1-12E5-C3D062151C3F7E26/nri-NTFListings6426NOPIItable.csv?t=1784017173223","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}},{"description":"Fort Scott National Historic Site is documented on the National Park Service Network to Freedom for its role in the Underground Railroad. The site's documented history is the record the rest of the file stands on. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. 'NPS Network to Freedom listing' documents the entry. It anchors the timeline the rest of the file hangs from.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":null,"date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Historic site; verify hours and access with the managing agency before visiting; check nps.gov for current hours and alerts.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Public NPS Network to Freedom listings, row 2, ID 01GA01","url":"https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/sortable_dataset/undergroundrailroad/F0E29766-00A1-12E5-C3D062151C3F7E26/nri-NTFListings6426NOPIItable.csv?t=1784017173223","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"NPS Network to Freedom listing","url":"https://www.nps.gov/subjects/ugrr/index.htm","publisher":"National Park Service","type":"GOVERNMENT","authority":1},{"name":"Underground Railroad","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Railroad","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[{"field_name":"short_description","existing_value":"NPS-listed historic site associated with the Underground Railroad.","incoming_value":"The fort—where Bleeding Kansas’ violence played out.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"historic_designation","existing_value":"National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom listing","incoming_value":"NPS Network to Freedom","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."},{"field_name":"research_notes","existing_value":"Government-registry discovery record, unique ID 25KS01, source row 455. Inclusion concerns slavery, freedom-seeking and resistance history; no haunting is inferred. City, coordinates and detailed history are not inferred from the name. The source Year Established field is not treated as year built/opened. ","incoming_value":"UGRR enrichment wave 4; VERIFY task auto-queued.","notes":"Preserve both source-backed variants; no automatic overwrite."}],"wiki":{"title":"Fort Scott National Historic Site","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Scott_National_Historic_Site","desc":"National Historic Site of the United States","extract":"Fort Scott National Historic Site is a historical area under the control of the United States National Park Service in Bourbon County, Kansas, United States. Named after General Winfield Scott, who achieved renown during the Mexican–American War, during the middle of the 19th century the fort served as a military base for US Army action in what was the edge of settlement in 1850. For the next quarter century, it was used as a supply base and to provide security in turbulent areas during the opening of the West to settlement, a period which included Bleeding Kansas and the American Civil War.","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/Fortscottks.JPG/330px-Fortscottks.JPG?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":93,"lat":37.84388889,"lon":-94.70472222},"counts":{"claims":0,"history":2,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":3}}