Fort Grant, Arizona

Fort Grant
Aravaipa Canyon, Arizona
Fort Grant, c.1885.
Type	Army fortification
Site information
Controlled by	Arizona
Condition	tourist attraction
Site history
Built	1872
Built by	United States
In use	1860–1905
Battles/wars	Apache Wars
Garrison information
Occupants	United States Army

Fort Grant, located in the U.S. state of Arizona, is a state prison and a former United States Army fortification. Fort Grant is located on the southwestern slope of Mount Graham in what is now Graham County. The post is named for Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States.

Fort Grant began its life as Camp Grant, Arizona (formerly Fort Breckinridge in August 1860 as an Old West outpost in Arizona Territory, at the junction of Aravaipa Creek and the San Pedro River. Fort Breckinridge was destroyed and the site abandoned in 1861, following removal of the Union garrison at the start of the American Civil War.

The site of Fort Breckinridge was reoccupied as Fort Stanford, or Camp Stanford, from 1862 to 1865 by troops of the California Column. When the U. S. Army reoccupied the site it was renamed Camp Grant, from 1865 to 1872.

In 1872 after the Camp Grant Massacre, the United States Army post at "old" Camp Grant, at the confluence of Aravaipa Creek and the San Pedro River, was relocated to the southwestern slope of Graham Mountain in what is now Graham County. The new fort was strategically placed so as to protect settlers who were constantly harassed by Apache warriors. It played a prominent role in the Apache Wars of the 1880s. It was repurposed in 1900 as a staging point for soldiers going to the Philippines to fight in the Philippine–American War.