By 1840, the federal government had decided to draw the line. The line would mark the limit of westward expansion for settlers coming from the eastern United States. This was to be the western border of Missouri along with Iowa and Arkansas. Lands to the west would be exclusively for the Indian tribes that had been pushed west by the expanding settlers.

A series of forts were built along this line both to protect the settlers to the east and the Indians to the west.

Fort Scott was unlike any other fort I have visited in that it has no walls. Buildings are built around the outside of the parade ground in a large rectangle but there is no wall behind those buildings. As it was explained to me, when it was built there were no trees and no other buildings to obscure the view from the high ground on which the fort sat, giving them visibility for miles in all directions.

Unfortunately, the western frontier limit lasted only a short period of time. The Mexican War in the late 1840s opened up more land for American settlers and they pushed across that frontier to occupy those lands.

Meanwhile in the 1850s, Fort Scott was embroiled in the bitter Kansas and Missouri conflicts over slavery. Kansas was to be the first test of a new law concerning the expansion of slavery. The law put the question of slavery in new territories up to a vote of the residents of the territory. Both sides of the debate carried out atrocities in Missouri and Kansas against those with differing opinions in an attempt through intimidation to get their way.

Following the Civil War, Fort Scott fell into disrepair until the 1960s when a local effort arose to restore the fort as a historical site. Over half of the current buildings are original with the remainder being faithful reconstructions.