The U.S. Army established the original Fort Wingate at San Rafael in 1862, at the foot of Mount Taylor and on the southern edge of Navajo country. From here Colonel Kit Carson launched the 1863–64 campaign that ended with the surrender of the Diné and the Long Walk — the forced 300-mile march to the Bosque Redondo internment camp at Fort Sumner. The fort was abandoned in 1868 and the buildings disassembled for materials.
Nothing of the fort itself remains above ground today — the site is open pasture marked only by a small historical sign on the village's main road. The decision to come here is a moral one as much as a sightseeing one: there is little to see, but the place matters.