PLEASE RETURN TO SUPERINTENDENT'S OFFICE Ft. Laramie Park History c. •375//3` / I 7 United States Department of the Interior7 r-rr72:1VED r 0.74 LARAMIE MP; NATIONAL PARK SERVICE ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGIONAL OFFICE 655 Parfet Street JMN 27 P.O. Box 25287 Route Date IN REPLY REFER TO: Denver, Colorado 80225 S7221 (RMR)PN To Supt JAN 2 5 1978 ST.W. ;iiSt7iarl 9; nrian Ea;.-tA Ad min. Main en. Cler0Ost -Memorandum Guards To: Superintendent, Fort Laramie National Historic Site From: Associate Regional Director, Planning and Resource Preservation, Rocky Mountain Region Subject: Fort Laramie Park History, 1890-1977 Enclosed is a copy of the Fort Laramie administrative history, just completed under contract with Merrill J. Mattes. A copy of the document is being sent to the Chief, Cultural Resources Management Division, WASO. No further distribution is planned for the present. Richard A. Strait cc: WAS0-560 (Chief, Cultural Resources Management Division) w/c enc. CONSERVE AMERICA'S ENERGY Save Energy and You Serve America! The authorized, official, documented FORT LARAMIE PARK HISTORY, 1890-1977 Merrill J. Mattes .;V-1t vl subnitted to the Regional Director, Rocky Mountain Regional Office,. Denver, Colorado January 1, 1978 1v)T-CT L ' . Fort, Laramie Park History TABLE OF CONTENTS -4d#, Page AUTHOR'S PREFACS Part I THE camps TO SAVE FORT LARAMIE Part II THE RESTORATION OF FORT LARAMIE 70 1. Interim State Custodianship, - 1937-19314 71 2. Early Federal Custodianship, 1938-1939 79 3. Jess H. Lombard, Custodian, 1939-1544 87 I. Thor Borreson, Custodian, 1944.1946 105 5. David L. Hieb, Custodian/ Superintendent, 1947-1949 122 6. David L. Hieb, Superintendent/ Restorationist„ 1950-1958 149 7. Ray Ringenbach, Superintendent, 19581960 189 8. Charles C. Sharp, Superintendent, 1961-1973 212 9. Richard L. Maeder, Superintendent, 1973-1977 274 MAP APPENDIX 329 1. Location Map, 1978 Fort Laramie National Historic Site 2. Fort Laramie Military Reservation, Showing trails 3. Remaining Structures at Old Fort Laramie, 1915-1937 4. Lands Proposed for Purchase by Wyoming, 1931 5. Lands Purchased by Wyoming, 1937, the Fort Laramie National Monument, 1938 6. Lands Authorized by Congress, 1960, the Fort Laramie National Historic Site AUTHOR'S PREFACE This officially authorized, sponsored, and documented FORT LARAMIE PARK HISTORY is submitted in fulfillment of my Contract No. CX-1200-6-H028 dated June 24, 19 176 with the Rocky Mountain Regional Office,, National Park Service, Denver. Although more glamorous titles occurred to me, PARK HISTORY seems to be the only one that adequately describes the purpose, which is to document the origins of the park unit established by Presidential Proclamation as a National Monument in 1938 ("The Crusade") and to provide an integrated narrative account of events since then, dominated by the one major theme -- The Restoration". At the same time this title clearly differentiates this work from the usual kind of "Fort Laramie History" which is concerned with the frontier period, 1834-1890. The alternative title, "Administrative History",was discarded as not being properly descriptive of the two major historical move- ments, "The Crusade" and subsequent "Restoration." While not as glamorous as the frontier episodes, the happen- ings of the post-military period, 1890 to the present, are interest- ing, sometimes colorful, and even exciting to those with special interests, i.e., Wyoming history, Oregon Trail history, local history, Fort Laramie Park History jj Preface historic preservation, etc. I have trild to make the story readable, to avoid a dull encyclopedic approach - the deaC"/ - chronology of a straight daily log. I have not i.e.:rained from injecting color and humor where situations warrant, and I have even "editorialized" where it would serve to give perspective to the larger meaning of events. However, the primary purpose of this history is not to entertain. Its purpose, its justification, is. to do something never attempted before, to objectively detail and doc. ment the background of the present Fort Laramie National Historic Site, and how it came to be what it is today -- one of the most significant, most authentic, and inspirational historic shrines in Western America. The immediate practical purpose of a PARK HISTOR/ is to provide an official documented report that should serve as an important ref- •rface• work for All responsible and conscientious park and Regional Office employees, present and future. Whether ones primary function is administration, interpretation, protection, research, or planning, certainly a vital ingredient of intelligent management of az . of these departments is knowledge of what has gone before. To believe otherwise is to take the arrogant and dangerous viewpoint of "gn ego in a vacuum." While, therefore, this history serves primarily as an indispen- sable management tool, it may also have beneficial side effects. That is, it may be of sufficient interest to some people outside of the National Park Service that a wider distribution or availability, • Fort Laramie Park History jjj Preface beyond that of a limited edition in-house document, might be warranted. Since there is a consensus that Fort 'Aramaie it7NYo- mines Number 1 historic site, some details of the story might be of keen interest to Wyoming citizens generally, young and old. Since the decades-long painstaking restoration of the Fort has resulted in an exemplary model of historic preservation integrity, the story may be of More than passing interest to a wide circle of historic preservationists. The most logical vehicle for publication to reach these special- ized audiences is the periodical, Annals of WyominK. Accordingly, with the approval of the Regional Director, that portion of the manuscript called "The Crusade to Save Fort Laramie" (revised and corrected since my original submission of June 10, 1977) has been submitted to Katherine Halverson, head of the Research and Publics. tions Branch, Wyoming State Archives and Historical Department, and accepted by her for publication in 1978, by way of celebrating the 40th anniversary of the creation of Fort Laramie National Monument/ Historic Site. A condensed version of the lengthier history of the Restoration period, 1938.1977, which would be prepared voluntarily by the writer may, with any required official approvals, follow later. While the civilian or "post-post" history of Fort Laramie begins in 1890 with the military abandonment and the auctioning off of the buildings, it has proved to be impractical, if not altogether impossible, to include here'a meaningful resume of those local events which preceded "The Crusade" which, from all available evidence, Fort Laramie Park History iv Preface began circa 1915. Aside from the digmAl fact that almost all structures not preserved today were obviously torn down for salvage by or with the consent of private owners, the record of this remote period is at beat fragmentary and, from the vantage point of national significance which invests the Fort proper, somewhat trivial. Worm yet, the main source of evidence for this dim period, the records of the venerable John Hunton,who was "Mr. Fort Laramie" in the post-abandonment era, are to a considerable degree inaccesssible for present serious research. That is, the unpublished Hunton Manes for the period after 1889 are held by Mrs. L. G. Flannery of °wenn., who denied permission for this writer, as she has all others, to examine these diaries and extract pertinent information. The John Bunton Letter Books in the special collections of the Wyoming University Library are for the most part dim or illegible, threatening the eye-sight of any reader. My genuine efforts at ex- ploration of the John Hunton period, aside from those aspects in. eluded in "The Crusade" section herewith, became a futile antiquarian exercise, expensive of time, money, and energy, which yielded returns which were not only meager but mainly irrelevant to the primary theme that concerns Us. (Worse yet, this frustrating search contrib- uted to delays in the submission of this final manuscript). If enough can ever be scrounged up from these "dark ages" of Fort Laramie history to make a coherent story, that can be done later as a historical foot-note. The treatment of our grand theme has been in no way impaired by the meagerness of the pre-1915 data. Fort Laramie Park History Preface • There is one aspectofthis history, of a personal nature, which requires editorial comment. Sometimes an -or in a -14Y happens also to be the writer of that play. In th.;.s case, the present writer was also a figure in the Fort Laramie scenario, intermittently from 1935 to the present (1978), a period of 43 years. Beginning in 1935. As set forth in this history, I played various roles as Fort Lennie promoter, unofficial and official Historian, planner, and restoration project coordinator, while stationed successively at Scotts Bluff National Monument, the old Midwest Regional Office. n Omaha, the Western Service Center in San Francisco, and the Denver Service Center. Because of these long and intimate associations, my name crops width awkward frequency in the narrative but there is no help for it if we are to be both accurate and specific about who did that when. Despite this dis- claimer, critics may feel that this is an ego vehicle, that / should have been more anonymous, and they -- if any are entitled to their opinions. My assumption is that the Rocky.Mountain Regional Office asked me to undertake this heavy task for the reason that I was long and intimately involved in the subject and shoed be able, therefore, to provide insights and an overview that another Historian, chosen at random, "a stranger to Fort Laramie," would lack. It mould seem dishonest, therefore, rather than merely modest, to omit or play down legitimate references to "the author as actor." Thus much of this recent history is drawn from personal memory , of events back to 1935, although most of it can be verified in • Fort Laramie Park Histor7 vi Preface official files.