George Crook
(1828-1890)

Born near Dayton, Ohio, September 8, 1828, he graduated from West Point in 1852. He fought with distinction in the Civil War and was promoted to Major General in 1865.

In the summer of 1871 command of the Department of Arizona was given to General Crook. His duties were to put down all hostile Indians and to round up all non-hostile Indians and place them on reservations.

Crook carried out a quick a brutal campaign starting with the Salt River Cave conflict and ending with the Turret Mountain conflict. As overt Apache resistance to anglo-american control diminished, Crook left Arizona in 1875 to fight the Sioux Indians.

He returned to Arizona in 1882 to capture Geronimo. This assignment lasted for the next three years before his patience and insistence on honesty with the Indians put him at such odds with his superiors he requested to be relieved of his duty. Though relieved of his duties General Crook continued to wage campaigns in the halls of congress to have the Indians moved from reservations in Florida back to their homelands in the western U.S.