United States · 19th century
Fort Wingate was a military installation near Gallup, New Mexico, United States. There were two other locations in New Mexico called Fort Wingate: Seboyeta (1849–1862) and San Rafael (1862–1868). 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.
The Fort Wingate Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The associated community was first listed as the Fort Wingate census-designated place in 2020, with a population of 328 during the 2020 census.
Text adapted from “Fort Wingate” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Fort Wingate ranks #1,812 of 9,079 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #31 of the 110 mapped in United States. Founded 1862, it is older than 7% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 717 atlas entries founded in the 19th century. Its Wikipedia articles were opened 2,700 times in the last 60 days, more than 76% of the atlas. See how United States compares in the castle statistics.
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