Fort Robinson Cemetery lies on the grounds of Fort Robinson, west of Crawford, in one of the most consequential places in the history of the northern plains.
The post was established as Camp Robinson on 29 March 1874 to protect the Red Cloud Agency, and was named for Lieutenant Levi Robinson, killed the month before. On 6 May 1877 Crazy Horse surrendered his band of 889 people here. On 5 September that year he was killed at the post while resisting imprisonment.
In October 1878 Cheyenne under Dull Knife were captured and held at the fort after their flight north from Indian Territory. On 9 January 1879 they broke out of the barracks; by the 22nd the last of them had been killed or captured. The events of that fortnight are remembered as the Cheyenne Outbreak, and as the Fort Robinson massacre.
The fort's later history is long. The 9th Cavalry — Buffalo Soldiers — was stationed here from 1890 and the 10th Cavalry from 1906; the same 9th Cavalry had served at Fort Niobrara, near Valentine, from 1885. A Quartermaster Remount Depot was established in 1919, a War Dog Reception and Training Center in October 1942, and a German prisoner-of-war camp in March 1943. Both closed in 1946. The fort became surplus in 1948, and from 1955 the ground was acquired for what is now Fort Robinson State Park.
Around 22 memorials have been recorded for the post cemetery. That is a record of what has been documented rather than a count of everyone buried here, and it should not be read as a list of who lies in this ground — army post cemeteries were commonly relieved of their burials to national cemeteries, and what happened here is not established in the sources consulted.
Mari Sandoz, who is buried in Sheridan County to the east, wrote two books out of what happened at this post: Crazy Horse (1942) and Cheyenne Autumn (1953).
The cemetery is within Fort Robinson State Park, which is open to visitors and has its own history centre. A Nebraska state historical marker for the Fort Robinson Cemetery stands in the park — marker number 223 — and the park carries more state markers than anywhere else in Nebraska, sixteen of them on the Historical Society's own county list.
For burial records or plot enquiries, contact the City of Crawford, or the Dawes County Clerk in Chadron. Ownership can also be confirmed through the Nebraska Statewide Cemetery Registry at the State Historical Society.