Laramie, Wyoming

“ Men engaged in blacksmithing and general repair, traded at the fort, or went fishing. The women busied themselves with washing and baking or gathered chokecherries or currants.
The Mormons at this time conceived a plan which was used for several years at Fort Laramie. Wagon supply trains from Utah, drawn by teams acclimated to mountain travel, met emigrating “Saints” from the East, and teams were exchanged. Thus, they avoided the serious losses of stock often resulting when tired low-country teams encountered the high altitudes of South Pass and the rough mountain trails into Utah. ”

“ Competition in the declining fur trade led to open traffic in “fire-water,” and the debauchery of the Indians around Forts Platte and Laramie was noted by many travelers of the early 1840’s. Rufus B. Sage vividly describes the carousals of one band of Indians which ended with the death and burial of a Brule chief. In a state of drunkenness, this unfortunate merrymaker fell from his horse and broke his neck while racing from Fort Laramie to Fort Platte. ”

“ During the following year, Indians committed many small-scale depredations along the Oregon Trail. However, despite greatly exaggerated alarms, the emigrants of 1855 were for the most part unmolested. Meanwhile, the Army had become convinced that the Indians must be punished, and a force of 600 men under Gen. W. S. Harney marched westward from Fort Leavenworth. The Indian agent at Fort Laramie warned all friendly Indians to come to the south side of the Platte—a warning heeded by many bands. ”

“ Again, the peace advocates in Washington were in the ascendancy, and in the summer of 1867 the Congress provided a commission to treat with the Indians, but authorized recruiting an army of 4,000 men if peace was not attained. Treaties with the southern tribes were concluded at Fort Larned in October, and the commissioners came to Fort Laramie in November to treat with the northern tribes. However, few came in and the hostiles, led by Red Cloud, sent word that no treaty was possible until the forts on the Bozeman Trail and in the valley of the Powder River were abandoned to the Indians. ”

“ This obviates the necessity of admitting suspicious Indians for purposes of trading into the body of the fort, for when danger is apprehended the inner gate is shut fast, and all traffic is carried on by means of the window. This precaution, though necessary at some of the company’s posts, is seldom resorted to at Fort Laramie, where, though men are frequently killed in the neighborhood, no apprehensions are felt of any general designs of hostility from the Indians. ”

“ Colorado further answers that she can accomplish more with the water than Wyoming does or can; that she proposes to use it on lands in the Cache la Poudre valley; and that they with less water will produce more than the lands in the portion of the Laramie valley known as the Laramie Plains. It is true that irrigation in the Poudre valley has been carried to a higher state of development than elsewhere in the Rocky Mountain region, and that the lands of that valley lieat a lower altitude than do those in the Laramie Plains, and generally are better adapted to agriculture. ”

“ Efforts to burn out the Indians by setting a 300-mile-wide prairie fire brought them swarming back to the attack, destroying the South Platte road stations and miles of telegraph line, sacking and burning Julesburg a second time, and driving off great herds of livestock. While troops from Fort Laramie arrived at Mud Springs Station in time to fight off the Indians there, all efforts by troops from Fort Laramie and the east failed to prevent the Indians from escaping with their booty across the North Platte, near Ash Hollow. ”

“ During this period, troops at Fort Laramie continued to protect the vital telegraph line through South Pass and a still considerable volume of travelers, principally to Utah.
The next winter was fairly peaceful at Fort Laramie, and of social life at the post young Caspar Collins wrote to his mother: “They make the soldiers wear white gloves at this post, and they cut around very fashionably. ”

“ A second expedition, led by Col. R. I. Dodge and Prof. W. P. Jenney, set out from Fort Laramie the next spring to explore and evaluate the gold deposits in the Black Hills. Miners also thronged the hills, and efforts to make them await negotiations with the Indians were only partly successful. Meanwhile, the Government did make an effort to buy the Black Hills from the Sioux; but the Indians, led by Chief Spotted Tail, set a justly high price on the area, which the Government refused to meet. ”

“ The cavalry barracks, 1954, partially restored.
When approaching the fort, the visitor crosses the North Platte River on a picturesque iron truss bridge which was built by the Army in 1875-76 with materials hauled by ox team from Cheyenne. A short distance above the bridge, on the south bank of the river, is the site of old Fort Platte, rival of the second Fort Laramie (Fort John) . Farther on, to the left of the road, is a modern cemetery which includes a few marked burials of soldiers and civilians of the late military period. ”

“ To the north and west high mountains rise, out of which the river flows, and in this district is the great fossil region of Wyoming. This state is the most prolific producer of the skeletons of the enormous beasts that roamed the earth in prehistoric times. About ninety miles northwest of Laramie City are the greatest 471 fossil quarries in existence, and the scientific hunters from all the great museums have been finding rich treasures there. We are told that in an early geological period Wyoming had numerous lakes and swamps and a semi-tropical climate. ”

“ By the next year, the Utah Campaign involved some 6,000 troops, half of whom were in or near Utah, with Fort Laramie their nearest sure source of supply.
In spite of this warlike activity, thousands of emigrants continued to roll westward by covered wagon, the great travel medium of the plains. To these the fort was a vital way station, as it was to the great firm of Russell, Majors, and Waddell, freighting contractors who carried supplies to the Army in Utah. In 1858, this enterprise alone involved 3,500 wagons, 40,000 oxen, 1,000 mules, and 4,000 men. ”

“ Early in 1857, the War Department decided to abandon Fort Laramie, but events forced the cancellation of the order before it could be carried out, and the fort again demonstrated its strategic importance. First, it served as a supply base for a punitive expedition led by Col. E. V. Sumner against the Cheyennes between the Platte and Arkansas Rivers. Then, as that campaign drew to an inconclusive end, the fort became a vital base for the Army which marched toward Utah that fall to subdue the reportedly rebellious Mormons. ”

“ A good many of the regulars are married and have their wives and families with them.” He also indicated that they had a circulating library, a band, amateur theatricals, and an occasional ball. However, the dangers of the frontier were ever present, and, later that winter, troops en route from Fort Laramie to Fort Halleck encountered weather so severe that several were frozen to death.
Indians continued to steal horses from the overland mail stations, freighters, and ranchers, and incidents provoked by both whites and Indians piled up until the whole region was in a state of alarm. ”

“ Both Colorado and Wyoming are in the arid region, where flowing waters are, and long have been, commonly diverted from their natural channels and used in irrigating the soil and making it productive. For many years some of the waters of the Laramie river have been subjected to such diversion and use, part in Colorado and part in Wyoming. ”

“ John Hunton was appointed custodian of the abandoned military reservation for the General Land Office. He first came to Fort Laramie in 1867 to work for the sutler. Later, he became a ranch operator, and in 1888 he succeeded John London as post trader. Hunton was a major buyer at the final auction and managed to homestead the northwest side of the old parade grounds of the fort, continuing to operate the sutler’s store briefly, and living next door in the former officers’ quarters for nearly 30 years. ”

“ Fort Laramie National Monument has no facilities for camping parties. Trailer parks, motels, hotel accommodations, and restaurants 43 may be found in the nearby towns of Torrington, Lingle, Fort Laramie, and Guernsey.
The area is open the entire year. Historical information and literature are available at the administrative office and museum, which is open every day during the summer. ”

“ This, coupled with a bloody uprising of the Sioux in Minnesota in 1862, inspired the Plains Indians, nursing many grievances, to go on the warpath. In the spring of 1862, many stage stations along the Platte route were raided and burned. To meet this threat, volunteer cavalry from Utah rushed east to the South Pass area, and the Eleventh Ohio Volunteer Cavalry under Col. Wm. O. Collins was ordered west to Fort Laramie. These raids also prompted the moving of the overland mail and stage route south to the Overland Trail and the establishment of Fort Halleck 120 miles to the southwest. ”

“ When the evidence was taken, in 1913 and 1914, the Laramie had not been gaged so thoroughly nor for so long a period as had the Cache la Poudre. Such gaging as had occurred had been done at different places in different periods, partly by the United States Geological Survey, partly by Colorado, and partly by Wyoming. Some of the gaging stations were in Colorado, but most were in Wyoming. The latter included Woods, nine miles north of the state boundary, and the Pioneer Dam, four miles north of Woods. The evidence centered largely around the flow and gaging at these places. ”

“ In defense, Colorado contends that the meadowland diversions in excess of 4250 acre feet were in accordance with Colorado law and were not inconsistent with the decree of this Court until a diversion by Colorado from the Laramie river for all purposes reached the allocated total of 39,750; that the diversion of an amount greater than that total during the period above specified was with the acquiescence of Wyoming; and that Wyoming has not been injured. ”

“ The white men were to be free to travel the roads and hold their scattered forts, and the Indians were to receive an annuity of $50,000 in goods each year. The council was considered a great success and gave promise of a lasting peace on the plains.
The Emigrant Tide and Indian Troubles, 1852-53
In 1852, the emigrant tide again swelled to nearly 40,000, over 10,000 of which were Mormons. The emigrants were encouraged to depend on supplies available at Fort Laramie and other posts along the trail. ”

“ To support it, Colorado has presented affidavits showing communications between an association of meadowland appropriators and the special hydrographer of Wyoming and also stating that at a conference in the office of the Governor of Colorado on July 1, 1939, the officers of Wyoming said that they had no objection to continued diversions being made through the meadowland ditches for the reason that a great portion of the water so diverted returned to the Laramie river to be used downstream by Wyoming appropriators. ”

“ It stretches from the Wind River Mountains on the north to the Uintas on the south, and is bounded westwardly by the Wyoming Range, and on the east merges into the Laramie Plains. The drainage exit is through the Uintas, as noted, by means of the canyons heading at Flaming Gorge. There are here opportunities for extensive farming by irrigation. The only other chance for agriculture on the river, except Wonsits Valley, Brown’s Park, and a few minor places, is below Black Canyon, in the stretches I have called the alluvial and the canyon-valley divisions. ”

“ Soon after starting, the Whitman party overtook the Fitzpatrick fur traders with their carts, and then making up altogether a caravan of nineteen carts, one light wagon and two heavy wagons. On reaching Fort Laramie, at the junction of the North Platte and Laramie rivers, in what is now Laramie county, Wyoming, the fur traders' carts stopped, that being as far as it was then deemed practicable for wheeled vehicles, but on account of the enfeebled condition of Mrs. ”

“ The major Indian raids of the summer centered on Platte Bridge Station, 130 miles above Fort Laramie, where late in July a large force of Indians wiped out a wagon train and killed 26 white men, including Lt. ”

“ Big Timber Creek was called La Fourche Boisée by Frémont; more frequently it was known by the name it still retains—La Bonté Creek, in Converse County, Wyoming. The cut-off recommended by Palmer would be by way of Elkhorn Creek and an affluent of La Bonté.—Ed.
[40] Deer Creek is the largest southern affluent of the Platte, between the Laramie and the Sweetwater. It is well-timbered, and its mouth was a familiar camping place on the Oregon Trail. It is in the western part of Converse County, Wyoming, about 770 miles from the starting point at Independence.—Ed. ”

“ An automobile shot out from a gash in the hills and slipped swiftly down to the butte. Here it came to a halt on the white, dusty road, while its occupant gazed with eager, unsated eyes on the great panorama that stretched before her. The earth rolled in waves like a mighty sea to the distant horizon line. From a wonderful blue sky poured down upon the land a bath of sunbeat. The air was like wine, pure and strong, and above the desert swam the rare, untempered light of Wyoming. Surely here was a peace primeval, a silence unbroken since the birth of creation. ”