Established on less than an acre of ground north of the main buildings, Fort Missoula’s post cemetery is still in active use. The first person buried here was Private William Gerick in 1878. Subsequently, soldiers who served in the Civil War, Indian Wars, Spanish American War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War are buried on these grounds. Among some two hundred graves are more than forty soldiers of the all-black 25th Infantry, garrisoned at Fort Missoula from 1888 to 1898. When Fort Ellis near Bozeman was abandoned after 1886 and remains shipped to other active national cemeteries, thirty-six individuals were transferred to Fort Missoula. Not all burials, however, are soldiers. A few women, wives of officers and senior sergeants, are also interred here, and more than fifty children who lived at the fort. The youngsters died from a variety of causes including premature birth, rickets, and flu.
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