Fort Riley & Junction City

        Five miles to the northeast the Republican and Smoky Hill rivers unite to form the Kansas or Kaw. At the junction, the city which bears the name, was founded in 1857. Before the arrival of the westward-building Union Pacific railroad in 1866, steamboats occasionally navigated the Kaw river from Kansas City to Junction City, when they could elude the sifting sandbars.
 
        Fort Riley, one of the nation's major military establishments, adjoins Junction City on the east. Established as Camp Center in 1852, the fort has quartered some of the most famous U. S. army units in history, including Custer's Seventh (Indian-fighting) cavalry, organized there in 1866. The army's cavalry school, established at the post in 1892, was said to be the finest in the world until mechanization displaced the horse in the 1940's.
 
        This highway takes you through the southern edge of Fort Riley. To your left will be Marshall Field, an early army airport commanded in 1926 - 1928 by Maj. H. H. (Hap) Arnold, later commanding general of the USAAF in World War II. Farther north on the military reservation are the Camp Funston area, training center for both World Wars; the Fort Riley museum; and the First Capitol of Kansas, 1855.