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.

History

19th century

20th century

21st century

Geography

Fort Wingate is in western McKinley County, with the inhabited portion located 15 mi by road east-southeast of Gallup, the county seat. New Mexico State Road 400 runs through the community, leading north 3 mi to Interstate 40 and south 8 mi to McGaffey. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Fort Wingate census-designated place has an area of 2.02 sqmi, all land. The area drains north toward the South Fork of the Puerco River, part of the Little Colorado River watershed.

Education

There are two Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) boarding schools in the area: Wingate Elementary School, and Wingate High School. the Wingate Elementary dormitory is a former military barracks that also houses students at Wingate High. In 1968 the girls' dormitory had 125 girls; the Associated Press stated that the dormitory lacked decoration and personal effects and was reflective of a campaign to de-personalize Native American students. At the time the school strongly discouraged students from speaking Navajo and wanted them to only speak English. Circa 1977 it opened a 125-student $90,000 building which used a solar heating system. The non-BIE school district is Gallup-McKinley County Public Schools. It is zoned to Indian Hills Elementary School, Kennedy Middle School, and Hiroshi Miyamura High School.

Notable people