Location: Goshen County Map
Former Names: Fort William, Fort John
Area: 833 acres (3.37 km2)
Found: 1830s
Fort Laramie (founded as Fort William and later known as Fort John) was a military fort during the 19th century, an important trading post, and the site of diplomatic talks between the United States government and Native Americans. The fort is located 2 km southwest of Fort Laramie, in eastern Wyoming, USA. Nearby, the Laramie River flows into the North Platte. The Oregon Trail passed by this place. The fort is named after Jacques La Ramée, a French-Canadian trapper who settled in the area with a number of companions. Arapahos were accused of killing him around 1820 at the river that now bears his name and placing his body in a beaver dam. Fort Laramie is a symbol of the Wild West. For a time it was a station of the Pony Express and played an important role in the fight against the indigenous people. This is where the first treaty of Fort Laramie was signed in 1851.
Fort William was the first fortification built on this
site in 1834 by Robert Campbell and William Sublette. It was a
rectangular structure with a poplar palisade, barely 30 m long and 25 m
wide. A log cabin with a cannon was built above the entrance gate. In
its early years, it served as a stopping point for trappers, mountain
men, and travelers as they trek west on the Oregon Trail, California
Trail, and Mormon Trail. From here, two thirds of the journey still had
to be covered. The fort was naturally protected by the two rivers. In
2015, the Laramie River has a much smaller flow than in previous
centuries, as much of its water is used for irrigation of fields. In the
past there were a number of bridges over the Laramie River. The
foundation of one of them can still be found.
Fort John, a 55 by
40 m adobe fortification built by Mexican workers, was built in 1841
after Pierre Chouteau and his firm acquired Fort William. Two bastions
positioned diagonally opposite each other and a large entrance gate made
for an impressive whole for that time. This trading post was thus better
able to compete with its rivals. It cost Piere Chouteau and co. about
$10,000. Walls five meters high provided protection for the merchants
and craftsmen such as blacksmiths, carpenters and saddlers. Lakota
traded buffalo hides for finished products. From 1840 the importance of
the trade in bison skins began to decline sharply, while from 1841 the
migration to the west got under way. Merchants in the fort did good
business supplying the migrants. These several weeks of intense trading
failed to make up for the losses from the waning fur trade. When the US
Army offered the owners of Fort John $4,000 in 1841, the sale was
quickly completed. The army used the old fortress as a warehouse.
Gradually, the name Fort Laramie came into use as an abbreviation of
Fort John on the Laramie River. Over the years, a number of buildings
have disappeared or been rebuilt with more sustainable materials.
Equipment was taken from a site called Rifle Pit Hill, about 16 miles
west of the fort, along what is now the U.S. Itinerary 26.
As the
United States prepared to celebrate its centenary in 1876, word spread
that gold had been found in the Black Hills. A new bridge over the North
Platte allowed prospectors to cross the river here. John S. Collins
built a hotel - The Rustic - within the fort that also served as the
headquarters for the Cheyenne and Black Hills Stage Company.
There is a memorial stone here commemorating the Fetterman battle and
John Portuguee Phillips riding for reinforcements from Fort Phil Kearny
to Fort Laramie on horseback. He covered the distance of 380 km in four
days (December 22 to 25, 1866) through a blizzard and freezing
temperatures. The horse succumbed shortly after arrival, it is said,
although there is no evidence as to whether or not Phillips switched
horses en route.
One of the striking buildings is Old Bedlam (old
madhouse), the wooden building from 1849 where the unmarried officers
slept and who made a lot of noise. For a time married officers populated
it and Old Bedlam served as a post office. It is the oldest building in
Wyoming. What is now called Burt House, built in 1888, was home to an
officer and his family. It is a house with a wooden roof and one floor.
Sutler's store (shop of a marketer) was a store, built in 1849, but in
1883 the building is no longer there. In that year a new shop, an
officers' mess, a warehouse and a drinking establishment with a billiard
room were built in succession.
In 1849, one fifth of the garrison
was suffering from scurvy. The army promoted vegetable gardens within
the fort to supplement the soldiers' meager rations. Each company was
assigned its piece of land. Early frosts in the fall, late frosts in the
spring, hailstorms and locusts ravaged the crops. In 1886 they produced
a total of more than 10,000 kilograms of vegetables. A water wheel on
the Laramie River and irrigation canals irrigated the fields. The
proceeds prompted competition between companies for soldiers to guard
them.
On the northern side was a hospital built in 1875, of which
only ruins remain in 2015. There was no operating room or laboratory,
but there was a room with twelve beds. There is strong evidence that the
hospital is in the middle of a cemetery of trappers and soldiers who
were buried here until 1868.
From 1802, the US Army employed washerwomen. They were
mostly immigrants of Irish descent. From the age of thirteen she was
allowed to wash for an average of 20 soldiers for which they received
wages, food, shelter and medical care. They obtained extra income by
helping in the kitchen and mending clothes. Single officers paid three
times as much as a soldier and married officers six times as much for
doing their laundry. It cost the military a lot of money to keep the
laundresses in service and congressmen struggled with the large costs.
By 1880 few were employed. Their presence caused a nuisance. To curb
this, soldiers and sub-officers were warned that anyone who remained in
their vicinity without reason would be arrested.
In 1875 the
quartermaster, who was responsible for supplies, among other things,
employed 52 wagoners. They ensured the supply of everything the fort and
its inhabitants needed. Stables for horses, mules and oxen, warehouses
and workshops for blacksmiths, wheelwrights, painters, carpenters and
farriers sprang up within the perimeter of Fort Laramie. Interpreters,
servants, a telegraph operator, a saddler and an engineer completed the
motley crew.
Sooner or later most soldiers came into conflict with their superiors. The vast majority were punished with tedious chores. Especially after paying the wages that resulted in the purchase of alcohol, fistfights often broke out. People appeared before the military court in cases of loss or sale of state property, foul language, unjustified absence and breaches of discipline. Then fines, imprisonment or hard labor followed as punishment. Before the American Civil War, punishment was harsher. Hanging by the thumbs, walking around with heavy packs on the back, whipping or branding had to keep the soldiers in line.
This period was the golden age of the fort and its inhabitants. The officers were given street lights and sidewalks at their homes. Buildings in adobe were replaced by new ones made of a mixture of grout and lime. Everything pointed to an abiding presence. The soldiers were kept busy with routine chores and rarely with military exercises in the field. The officers engaged in hunting, fishing, picnicking, and theater room activities. Real Victorian life arrived when a head station was built, barely 50 km from the fort. The first sign of impending decay came when the cavalry left the fort in 1883 and only infantrymen still served there. The construction of a new railroad at Fort Robinson in Nebraska in 1886 was the death knell for Fort Laramie. In 1889 came the order to leave the Grand Old Post. In 1890 Wyoming became a state and in the same year the last great conflict between whites and Indians, known as the Wounded Knee massacre, took place. The superintendent of the United States Census declared the same year that the Wild West no longer existed.
The main purpose of the fort was to protect and assist the emigrants on the Oregon Trail. The soldiers also functioned as a kind of engineering troops and helped e.g. to expand telegraph lines, just as they protected these. The fort kept tallies of the passing prairie wagons to obtain probable estimates of the number of emigrants. These made use of the local blacksmith to have wagon wheels repaired and horses shod, and 658 while the sick received treatment. Treaty-guaranteed goods for the Lakotas, Cheyennes and Arapahoes were for some years shipped out to the fort and stored there until the tribes picked them up.
The Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851) is named after the
military station, although the actual negotiations took place 50 km east
of it.
In 1854 Lieutenant Grattan was on duty at the fort when he
threw the U.S.S. into the first battles with the Lakota by shooting
Chief Conquering Bear.
An important treaty with the Lakota was
signed at Fort Laramie in 1868.
Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickock, Jim Bridger, Calamity Jane, and Generals Sheridan, Crook, and Sherman were once within the walls of Fort Laramie.
A few decades into the twentieth century, the old
buildings and grounds were considered to be of historical significance,
and on July 16, 1938, Fort Laramie National Monument was a reality. The
site changed its name to Fort Laramie National Historic Site on April
29, 1960.[3]:5
A museum and several restored buildings with
displayed furniture, uniforms and military equipment give visitors a
picture of life in the fort as it was when it was in use.