FORT WALLA WALLA CEMETERY

The cemetery was established soon after Lieutenant Edward Steptoe organized the first Fort Walla Walla, a few miles east of downtown, in 1856.  The fort moved two times in the immediate years following and the cemetery ended up presently just to the west of the last fort, the present-day Veterans Administration Medical Center.  The cemetery holds graves from the different eras of the fort’s existence, 1856-1910.  Civilian graves are separated from the soldiers by about thirty yards.  Three monuments reflect some of the major battles during the 1877-1878 Nez Perce War in which soldiers who spent some time in Fort Walla Walla lost their lives.