High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Fort McKinney (1877–1894) was a military post located first on the Powder River in Wyoming, and then moved to the Clear Fork of the Powder River, near present day Buffalo, Wyoming. The fort was named for Lieutenant John McKinney, 4th U.S. Cavalry, killed in an attack on a Cheyenne village on November 26, 1876 on the Red Fork of the Powder River. The Fort was created as part of the intensive reaction to the defeat of Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and was soon outmoded as the Indian Wars came to an end. The fort was occupied at various times by units of the 6th Cavalry, and the 9th Cavalry, a black army unit of "Buffalo Soldiers". Military units of the Fort took part in Wyoming`s "Johnson County War". The fort was closed in 1894, and the land and remaining buildings transferred to the State of Wyoming, who made the site the Wyoming Soldiers and Sailors Home starting in 1903.