Be sure to visit www.santafetrail.org/geocaching to learn about the PASSPORT ACTIVITY to accompany this Geo Tour. Fort Larned National Historic Site is on Kansas Highway 156, 6 miles west of Larned. Active from 1859 to 1878, Fort Larned was one of the major military installations on the Santa Fe Trail (only Fort Union in New Mexico was larger). Nine of the ten original stone buildings remain today, and the tenth was reconstructed in 1988. This is one of the best preserved frontier military posts in the American West, as well as on the entire Santa Fe Trail. Restoration and refurnishing of the fort are nearly completed. One building has been adapted to serve as museum, interpretive center, and administrative office. A set of Santa Fe Trail wagon ruts is located in this detached area 5 miles south of Fort Larned NHS. At the south end of the rut site, visitors can enter and walk the property, as well as visit the viewing stand for a look at the Trail ruts and the prairie dogs.
The container at this location on the Santa Fe National Historic Trail Geo Tour is a large Bison-brand canister. The cache contains a logbook to sign and some small swag. If you are participating in the Passport activity, the code word is located on the inside of the cannister, on the top of the lid and is clearly identified as Code Word; it is also written in the log book. Permission to set caches has been obtained. We ask that all cachers please respect all property at the sites where our caches are set.