The mission of the Fort Sill National Historic Landmark and Museum is
the collection and preservation of objects, the research and
installation of quality exhibits and the presentation of interactive
interpretation of the military, social, political, cultural and economic
history of Fort Sill and its vicinity from the Dragoon Expedition in
1834 to 1920. Several Native American tribes are an integral part of the
history of Fort Sill and will be considered irrespective of the
chronology. The purpose of the Fort Sill National Historic Landmark and
Museum shall be the education of Soldiers and Leaders and the
edification of Military families and the general public.
The US Army Field Artillery & Fort Sill Museum was established by
direction of the Chief of Field Artillery on December 10, 1934 and
formally opened in January 1935. The dual mission of preserving the
history of both the Field Artillery and of Fort Sill was identified from
the beginning. Captain Harry C. Larter, a Field Artilleryman, military
artist, and historian was the first curator. Larter made use of an old
artillery teaching collection of military items which had been brought
together at Fort Sill in 1919 and stored in a warehouse for a number of
years. Captain Wilbur S. Nye was given the task of compiling and writing
the history of Fort Sill as a joint action. The old guardhouse was
selected as the building to house this material for interpreting the
history to the public and it served as the main museum building for many
years.
The acquistion of additonal space was required to accommodate the
museum's increase in vistors, exhibits and donations and on 4 October
1958, the Quartermaster Corral was added to the complex. Exhibits within
this area included a replica Trader’s Store, a Wichita grass house, and
a Conestoga wagon. The Comanche County Historical Society also set up
frontier displays in this facility until 1961 when they were relocated
to Lawton and became the Museum of the Great Plains.
During the 1960s the Quartermaster Storehouse was opened featuring
artillery exhibits from the Revolutionary War period to 1900. The
adjacent Commissary Storehouse building exhibited the history of the US
Artillery from 1900 through the Korean Conflict. In addition, the
“Cannon Walk” was created as an outdoor display of U.S. and foreign
artillery pieces. By the 1970s, the museum had grown to include several
additional buildings such as the first headquarters for the School of
Fire for Field Artillery.
One of the two original Infantry Barracks was decorated as the “Hall of
Flags”. The original Post Headquarters building, constructed in 1870,
housed the museum collection offices and archival records during the
1970s. Finally, the first Post Chapel was assigned to the museum during
this time to protect it from over-development. Warrior's Journey Exhibit
Several additional facilities of the original historic post were added
to the museum during the 1990s, including a second Infantry Barracks on
the southwest corner of the Quadrangle; three cavalry barracks and
associated outbuildings on the west side of the Quadrangle; and the only
surviving balloon hangar on Fort Sill at the Henry Post Army Airfield.
The museum continued to shift its vast holdings and functions to more
appropriate facilities in order to continue meeting the required
standards of the museum profession. It became evident that the historic
buildings would not allow for displaying artillery as most of the
artillery collection was either displayed outside or was in deep storage
where the public could not see it.
By 1998 a new initiative known as Project Millennium established new
objectives for the museum and included the construction of a separate US
Army Field Artillery Museum, which was completed in the spring of 2008.
As the new Field Artillery Museum neared completion, plans were
developed to separate the mission of the museum into two distinct
missions (Field Artillery and Fort Sill). With this separation of
museums, the staff of the Fort Sill National Historic Landmark and
Museum were able to turn their attention back to the historic post area.
Today, the Fort Sill National Historic Landmark and Museum occupies 38
buildings, with a total of 144,514 square feet of exhibit and storage
space, a total collection of over 235,000 objects, and covering 142
acres in the Historic Landmark area.