Fort Logan National Cemetery
- 3698 S. Sheridan Blvd., Denver
Heavy traffic on Sheridan Boulevard whizzes
by the long, arrow-straight lines of headstones
marking the graves of more than 88,000 military
personnel and their dependents buried at
Fort Logan National Cemetery.
The more than 200 acres include the graves
of five Medal of Honor recipients and the
graves of those buried in the cemetery of the
Fort Logan military installation established in
the late 1880s. Grave-location information is
available on the Web at www.cen.va.gov.
Fort Logan opened in the late 1880s
because the people of Denver wanted a military
installation in the area for protection
against the continuing attacks on farms and
ranches in the vicinity by American Indians.
Local officials provided 640 acres for the
post, and the U.S. Army moved onto the property
in 1887.
The first contingent of troops arrived the
next year with arrival of seven companies of
the 7th Infantry Division.
The military installation was closed in 1946,
after which the Veterans Administration used
the hospital building until 1951. In the late
1950s, 214 acres of land were designated for
Fort Logan National Cemetery.
Part of the remaining land, along with many
of the buildings, was deeded to Colorado in the
1960s to establish the Fort Logan Mental
Health Center.
Many of the buildings date to the 1890s and
a group of volunteers, Friends of Historic Fort
Logan, have restored a building used as field
officer’s quarters and turned it into a museum.
The museum is open from 1-4 p.m. the third
Saturday of each month. There is no charge for
admission. |
