Richard Irving Dodge was a colonel in the United States Army. Dodge was born in North Carolina and died after a long and successful career in the U.S. Army. He began as a cadet in 1844 and retired as a Colonel May 19, 1891. Dodge was Aide-De-Camp to General William Tecumseh Sherman from 1881–1882. In the second publishing of his memoirs General Sherman wrote, "... the vacancy made by Colonel McCook was filled by Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Irving Dodge, Twenty-third Infantry then serving at a cantonment on the Upper Canadian—an officer who had performed cheerfully and well a full measure of frontier service, was a capital sportsman, and of a perfect war record. He also remained with me until his promotion as Colonel of the Eleventh Infantry, 26 January 1882."
To protect settlers traveling to the American west the army set up camps and forts along the favored routes. In Kansas in 1851 on the Santa Fe Trail a Colonel I. Dodge established Fort Dodge which lasted a short time. In 1864, General Grenville M. Dodge established a large fort in the same area on the north bank of the Arkansas River. The site was selected by Col. James Hobart Ford for whom the county was later named, and the fort was named Fort Dodge in the General's honor. "Fort Dodge was one of the most important forts on the Western frontier." Commanders at the fort included George Custer and Col. William H. Lewis. In July 1872, Richard Irving Dodge was in command at Fort Dodge and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway needed a station on the Arkansas River. A site was selected five miles west of the fort and a town company organized by Dodge and his officers, R.M. Wright was elected president, and the quartermaster, Major E. B. Kirk, was secretary and treasurer. The town was named Dodge City after Fort Dodge. Dodge City later became famous for its wildness, its Boot Hill cemetery, and gunslinging lawmen like Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson.
Devil's Tower
A 1906 presidential proclamation named a butte in Wyoming as Devils Tower National Monument based on the description of it by Lieutenant Colonel Richard Irving Dodge in 1875. There has been a dispute over the name since that time.
Published work
Hunting Grounds of the Great West Published by Chatto & Windus, 1877, London, England.
Our Wild Indians, A. D. Worthington and Company, 1883, Hartford, Conn, USA.
The Enlisted Soldier, 1886.
The Black Hills: A Minute Description of the Routes, Scenery, Soil, Climate, Timber, Gold, Geology, Zoölogy, etc., With an Accurate Map, Four Sectional Drawings, and Ten Plates from Photographs, Taken on the Spot. Minneapolis: Ross & Haines, Inc., 1965. Facsimile reprint of 1876 edition.
