Wakarusa War, Kansas.
Fort Wakarusa, Kansas, was established around 1856 in Douglas County.
During Kansas’s territorial days, opposing parties often gathered at places called “forts.” Fort Wakarusa was a Free-State fortification at the crossing of the Wakarusa River, near the old town of Sebastian, about five miles Southeast of Lawrence. Though no description of the fort survives, it was likely similar to other “forts” of the day—a log cabin surrounded by a line of earthworks or perhaps a line of palisades. One source said they dug rifle pits outside the fort.
Historian William E. Connelley drew a map in the 1920s that located the fort on the North side of the Wakarusa River, at Blue Jacket’s Crossing. However, because the river has changed course various times, the site of Fort Wakarusa may be on the South side of the river today. The fort was about midway between Lawrence, Kansas, and Eudora, Kansas.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated October 2026.
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