Metal and leather spur made by the Harpham Brothers of Lincoln, Nebraska. Belonged to (and probably used in retirement by) Colonel James Oakes of the Sixth U.S. Cavalry.
Oakes was the commanding officer at Fort Hays in the mid-1870s. He was an 1846 graduate of West Point, a class noted for its high number of Civil War generals (Oakes was a Brevet Brigadier General during the war). Oakes also served in Kansas at Fort Leavenworth prior to Fort Hays. He retired from active service in 1879, and died in 1910.