Nobody is really sure about this place. Sometimes referred to as "Fort" Sage it was most likely a temporary camp at best, and a last-ditch effort for survival at worst. Very likely is was just a location.
FORT SAGE
There was a garrison called Fort Sage (aptly enough) 46 miles north of Reno. It was located in Washoe County, west of Pyramid Lake, on the road from Reno to Fort Bidwell, Surprise Valley, California, between State Line Peak and the Virginia Mountains. This was a garrison occupied in the early 1870's.
-Nevada Historical Society, Early Nevada Forts, Col. George Ruhlen 1964
Fort Sage was on Lieutenant Perry Jocelyn's route when he took his troops on a march from Reno to Fort Bidwell in 1872.
A glance at any map of northwestern Nevada even today shows hardly a village along Jocelyn's line of march. Sheepshead, which in 1872 was called "Sheep Head," due to the fact that a large skull and horns of a mountain sheep were reposing near some drinkable water, is the only spot on modern maps which corresponds to the names of "Itneraries of Routes" as published by the Military District of the Pacific in those old days. There was a garrison called Fort Sage (aptly enough) forty-six miles north of Reno. Other pictureesque names along the route were Buffalo Meadow, Rotten Egg, Fish Spring, and Tuledad. Along the route Jocelyn discovered some short cuts which were acepted by headquarters in San Francisco. On te night of the first day five soldiers deserted, evidently not relishing the seventeen-day march to the out-of-the-way post of Camp Bidwell. Jocelyn sent a guard back to Reno, but the deserters were never caught. He thought they probably headed for the then booming mining town of Virginia City, tweny miles south of Reno. One of the soldiers was a recruit for a company of the First Calvary, already stationed at Bidwell.
-Mostly Alkali, Stephen Perry Jocelyn, 1953
Lieutenant Jocelyn briefly mentions Fort Sage in his diary.
June 1, 1872. Camp at dark at Milk Ranch. 25 pounds of butter per day made at the ranch where we are encamped.
June 2, 1872. Reveille at 3. First wagon mired within one hundred yards of camp. At 8 o'clock train has not advanced more than on half mile. Cross large hill where it is necessary to double the tems. (This meant going twelve miles, instead of six, for each wagon; first pulling one wagon up to the summit and then going back for another) Newcomb's ranch just on the other side with a lake mearby. Four miles further with still heavier hills. Fort Sage is reached. The whole distance 8 miles.
June 3, 1872 Leave camp at 5. Troops march by old road, saving three miles, adn arrive at Fish Springs Station at 8 a.m.
-Mostly Alkali, Stephen Perry Jocelyn, 1953
When Allexy W. VonSchmidt- known for the error-prone VonSchmidt boundary line- published his Map of the Eastern Boundary of the State of California in 1872, he noted the fairly precise location of the then-abandoned Fort in the already-by-then-named Fort Sage Mountains (named Sage Fort Mountains on his map.) While the northern straight up and down portion of his survey was correct, when he hit Lake Tahoe and headed southeast, it started to waver.
The 1872 Von Schmidt survey is the only one that was clearly marked along its entire length with stone, rock, wood and iron markers. The 1872 survey also was accepted longer than any other survey before its inaccuracy became widely known. It was not until 1893 that the Von Schmidt line was found to be 1,600 to 1,800 feet too far west.
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National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form
Anyway, we can assume, then, that this very detailed map of the northern section is accurate, and reliably places the location of Fort Sage. Since, by 1872 it ws already ruins, and Col. Ruhlen says it was occupied in the early 1870's, we can aslo assume it wasn't in existence for very long.
Tim Purdy writes:
Von Schmidt wrote in his survey notes: “About one mile east of the 133d mile is a fine stream of living water, called Sage Fort Creek, so named from the fact that at this place several years ago, a number of white people were killed by the Indians, the whites having constructed a rude fort were for a time able to resist the attacks of the savages but were finally slaughtered.”
-https://tipurdy.org/fort-sage-honey-lake-valley-nevada/
Who knows where Von Schmidt got his information from, but it certainly infers that the place existed in the late 1860's. It also infers it was a very temporary set up and used only once.
When queried, a Lassen County old-timer intimated that the fort was built hastily. No word on if the builders survived, or if the fort was later improved upon.
According to Lassen County historian Philip S. Hall, Charles Clark, who moved to Long Valley in 1872, told him this version. Clark stated that when the soldiers passed through the region there had been an Indian scare. The soldiers camped on the east side of the mountain, next to the only stream, and made a fortification of stone and debris.
-https://tipurdy.org/fort-sage-honey-lake-valley-nevada/
Nearby is the Fort Sage Drift Fence, a pre-historic aboriginal structure.
The Fort Sage Drift Fence, approximately 50 km. north of Reno, Nevada, consists of a well constructed rock alignment nearly 1800 m. long and in places almost a meter high. This site probably once functioned as an aboriginal hunting facility, built more than 3000 years ago by logistically organized hunter-gatherers. The drift fence was probably used to ambush antelope, although it could have been used in the hunting of bighorn sheep in late fall or winter.
-The Fort Sage Drift Fence, Washoe County, Nevada, Pendleton, Thomas, 1983
In this scientific report, they give another possible location.
There has been plenty of historic era activity in the vicinity. The site is named for Fort Sage, a military garrison used by troops patrolling the Reno-Ft. Bidwell road in the early 1870s (Jocelyn, 1953; Ruhlen, 1964, p. 51; see also Pendleton, McLane, and Thomas, 1982). Crumbling rock foundations, probably the ruins of Fort Sage, are visible near Miller Spring, approximately 5 km. southwest of Wa3030. The precise location of Fort Sage is uncertain. Jocelyn (1953) and Ruhlen (1964) place it in Washoe County, Nevada. W. Dalton La Rue, however, suggests that it was in California; he believes that the rock foundations at Miller Spring were built by a Mexican landholder who purchased the property in the 1880s (personal commun.).
-The Fort Sage Drift Fence, Washoe County, Nevada, Pendleton, Thomas, 1983
The problem with that is Miller Spring is 7.8 miles southeast of where
VonSchmidt shows it on his map, and over 3.5 miles east of the state line, on the other side of the mountain range. Even VonSchmidt probably wasn't that far off.
Having what is understood to have a brief existence, chances of any signs of Fort Sage being visible were slim at best. Still we nosed around the area a tiny bit to see what there was to see. The southern end of the Honey Lake Valley-- which is where we surmise the Fort's location to be-- seems to be the graveyard of hundreds of motor homes, mobile homes, cars, trucks, and various equipment and machinery, along with various corrals and fenced areas. The road is decent, probably owing to the nearby Fort Sage OHV areas nearby. But the place we decided Fort Sage to be was fenced with "No Trespass" signs, as was every other collection of metal flotsam and jetsam out there, so we'll probably never know the exact location.