Fort Wingate

Fort Wingate
McKinley County, near Gallup, New Mexico
Fort Wingate in the 1870s
Coordinates	35°06′45″N 107°52′58″W / 35.112466°N 107.882652°W / 35.112466; -107.882652
Site information
Controlled by	New Mexico
Condition	ammunition depot, storage facility
Site history
Built	1862
Built by	United States
In use	1862 - 1993
Battles/wars	Apache Wars Navajo Wars
Garrison information
Past commanders	Kit Carson William Redwood Price
Garrison	Navajo Scouts Apache Scouts 4th Cavalry 8th Cavalry 9th Cavalry and 13th Infantry 15th Infantry
Occupants	United States Army

Fort Wingate Historic District
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district
NM State Register of Cultural Properties
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Location	NM 400, Fort Wingate, New Mexico
Area	27 acres (11 ha)
Built	1868 (1868)
NRHP reference No.	78003076[1]
NMSRCP No.	403
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	May 26, 1978
Designated NMSRCP	August 22, 1975

Fort Wingate was a military installation near Gallup, New Mexico, United States. There were two other locations in New Mexico called Fort Wingate: Seboyeta, New Mexico (1849–1862) and San Rafael, New Mexico (1862–1868).^[2] The most recent Fort Wingate (1868–1993) was established at the former site of Fort Lyon, on Navajo territory, initially to control and "protect" the large Navajo tribe to its north. The Fort at San Rafael was the staging point for the Navajo deportation known as the Long Walk of the Navajo. From 1870 onward the garrison near Gallup was concerned with Apaches to the south, and through 1890 hundreds of Navajo Scouts were enlisted at the fort.

Fort Wingate supplied 100 tons of Composition B high explosives to the Manhattan Project for use in the first Trinity test and became an ammunition depot "Fort Wingate Depot Activity" from World War II until it was closed by the 1993 Base Realignment and Closure Commission. Environmental cleanup of UXO, perchlorate, and lead as well as land transfer continue to the present day.