The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 had promised the Black Hills to the Lakota people forever. That forever lasted about six years, until gold prospectors began streaming into the sacred hills, demanding Army protection from the very people whose land they were illegally occupying. In August 1876, just weeks after the 7th Cavalry's devastating defeat at Little Bighorn, soldiers established Camp Sturgis near Bear Butte. The camp was named for 2nd Lieutenant James G. Sturgis, one of the fallen. By 1878, the permanent post that became Fort Meade stood at the eastern gateway to the Black Hills, fourteen miles from the boomtown of Deadwood, where stage routes delivered fortune seekers and the Army maintained an uneasy peace.

The roster of units stationed at Fort Meade reads like a chronicle of the American military's evolution. The 7th Cavalry arrived after their Montana catastrophe, their commander Colonel Samuel D. Sturgis having lost his son at Little Bighorn. The Buffalo Soldiers of the 25th Infantry garrisoned here, African American troops serving on a frontier that offered them dignity their home states would not. In 1891, the Army experimented with recruiting Native American soldiers into Troop L of the Third Cavalry, hoping to build bridges between cultures. The initiative was abandoned by 1895, deemed unsuccessful. The 4th Cavalry witnessed the transition from horse to machine, watching the cavalry tradition they embodied become obsolete. By World War II, the 88th Glider Infantry Regiment trained here, soldiers who would descend silently from the sky.

Between 1906 and 1908, Fort Meade faced its strangest mission. Hundreds of Ute people had walked from Utah to South Dakota, refusing to accept the government's decision to allot their reservation. When negotiations collapsed, the Sixth Cavalry moved them to a camp at Alkali Creek, just south of the fort, where they remained under Army surveillance through the summer of 1907. The Ute were then relocated to Thunder Butte on the Cheyenne River Reservation, but the situation deteriorated when they refused to send their children to residential schools. They had seen too many children die in Utah's boarding schools. By October 1907, open rebellion flared briefly before quieting down. In June 1908, the Tenth Cavalry escorted the Ute back to Utah, ending one of the last armed Native American standoffs with the federal government.

By 1910, the frontier had vanished. Fort Meade pivoted to training mechanized cavalry units as horses gave way to engines. The original timber-frame buildings were replaced with brick and stone structures between 1900 and 1910, their Greek Revival columns suggesting permanence in a landscape of constant change. The Works Progress Administration added more buildings in the 1930s. The fort closed in 1944, but military presence never entirely departed. Today, a Veterans Health Administration hospital and National Guard training facilities occupy the grounds. The fort became a National Historic District in 1973, the first in Meade County to join the National Register. The South Dakota Centennial Trail now winds through the recreation area, where hikers walk paths once ridden by cavalry.