Don’t confuse it with the other Fort Kearny (the first one was 200 miles east, near Nebraska City, and lasted about a year). This Fort Kearny, built in 1848 where the trail needed it, became the essential Oregon Trail stop: stagecoach station, Pony Express home station, military depot, and headquarters of the Pawnee Scouts.
The original buildings are long gone — the Army abandoned the post in 1871 and homesteaders took the land — but the stockade, parade grounds, powder magazine, and blacksmith-carpenter shop have been reconstructed on the original footings, and the interpretive center fills in the rest.
Come in spring and double up: the park is one of the classic starting points for sandhill crane viewing, and the hike-bike trail crosses both channels of the Platte to the SRA. Living history weekends run Memorial Day, July 4th, and Labor Day.