R n the P 'os i l ui s qf ost p ta . T'E CO'ER Con ten ts ' Entitled Fort Laramie or Sublettes Fort near ' the Nebraska, or Platte River, the sketch repro The Old Guardhouse duce d here was originally made in watercolor by Fur-Trading Era Alfred Miller (1 8 1 0 an American artist who Fort Laramie as a Pioneer Post accompanied the expedition of Sir William Drum 1 837 1 Fort Laramie as a Military Post mond Stewart to the West in and 838 . The Fort Laramie Today scene depicted shows a colorful Indian encamp Allied Sites of Interest ment in front of the palisades an d blockhouses of old Fort Laramie . The sketch is from the Alfred l Mi ler Collection in the possession of Mrs . Clyde Porter , Kansas City, Mo . , and reproduced with her permission . UN I TED STATE S D EPARTM E NT O F TH E I NTER I O R A LD C 'E Secretaz O . H R L I S , gy AT I O NAL PAR ' SER 'I C E NE'TO B Da n y N N . n D re r , i cto Fort Laramie N ation a Mon u me n t NO 'ISTORIC SITE in the Rocky Mountain region is Others seeking adventure or a better and more I of . ts u more important than that Fort Laramie fruitf l life , found protection and supplies at Fort as - as story fur trading station and military post Laramie , the great way station on the road to the its epitomizes the history of the successive stages by West . In last decades it was a center for which the immense territory reaching from the negotiations with the northern plains Indians , and Missouri River t o the Pacific coast was Opened to a base for military Operations which drove the l settlement and occupied by adventurous and Indians from their o d homes . It served also as a - freedom loving American and European pioneers station and a protection for the Pony Express , the seeking to build new and better homes for them overland stage, and the mail service . ’ Of 1 880 s selves and their children on the virgin land In the , with the final subjugation Of the of i the West . plains Indians and with the coming the ra lroad on of its Located the rolling plains the southeastern as the chief means of travel , Fort Laramie lost of part the present Wyoming, Fort Laramie was usefulness as a military post and was abandoned in ' 1 834 of 1 890 . e founded in during the mighty days Rocky This famous post , howev r, will long be Mountain fur trapping and trading, and saw this remembered for the notable part it played in the ' wax . it typically pioneer business and decline By s history of western settlement . The men Of varied who gates , facing upon the Oregon Trail , passed the origins who passed it on their westward trek or firs t Protestant missionaries and the first home lived there as traders or soldiers were imbued with seekers on their way t o the Oregon country to the democratic faith and helped to establish that l a -Off f . o bui d new America on the far shores of the faith in the vast territory west the . 'Missouri ' Pacific . Mormons seeking to found a new ion To them, to their achievements , to their demo of ' - n in e rs in the promised land tah, forty hoping cratic ideals , and to the post itself, Fort Laramie f that Cali ornia was El Dorado, prospectors bound National Monument has been created as a for the mines of Montana and Idaho , and hosts of memorial . e r 7 42 A sk tch of Fo t Laramie in 8 . F ar Tradin Em portant group of guides for the Federal Govern g al ment in its first surveys Of the centr Rockies . Notable though its pioneering achievements L O T N OT NG AF ER the Louisiana Purchase , Ameri were , the Rocky Mountain Fur Co . lacked the cans began to exploit the lucrative fur resources financial resources and marketing facilities of the of the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains . larger fur companies . Competition was in cre as 1 8 1 2 Late in , Robert Stuart , carrying dispatches in g ly keen and unscrupulous 'and both the price w for John Jacob Astor east ard from Astoria at the and the demand for beaver skins , principal object of r mouth the Columbia River, reached the neigh of trapping, g adually declined as silk and other i borhood of the future Fort Laramie and subse hats began to replace the once fash onable beaver . ’ in 1 83 1 quently gave what is apparently the first written Finally, , Astor s powerful American Fur Co . began to Operate in the central Rockies and description Of the region . Ten years later the to diminish still further the business of its small Rocky Mountain Fur Co . was launched to open competitors . Three years later , the Rocky Moun up the rich central Rocky Mountain region . This Co . tain Fur , unable to meet these adverse condi company, first to exploit the Fort Laramie region , wa v s . tions , dissol ed opened up the country around the sources of the a 1 834 saw That same ye r, , the establishment of ' w Platte , Green , ello stone , and Snake Rivers , and Fort Laramie , the product of the foresight of gave the world its first real information concerning William L . Sublette and Robert Campbell, two the character and the potentialities of this vast partners with more than a decade of experience territory . Its trappers and traders discovered as trappers, traders , and entrepreneurs . They Great Salt Lake and were the first to go from that realized that the declining demand for beaver . Californ ia point southwesterly to southern and skins and the g rowing market for buffalo pelts westerly across the barren lands of Utah and would soon force the abandonment of the annual al Nevada to the Sierras and C ifornia . The most mountain rendezvous for the exchange of goods i r s . famous explo ers of the Far West , the Rocky and beaver skin For, wh le white trappers CO . im l Mountain Fur men composed the most large y procured the beaver skins , they did not An er ew o the Old G r ' e oth vi f ua d ous . — F r an e r r w n F T LA MI E I 7863 . then generally compete with the Indians in se OR RA N om a ly d a i g made M llman r Co. G E e en O C L r e B ler C. oe l l w w by ug , , v th hio ava y . a ami curing and tanning buffalo hides , hich ere P ke en i re r n re or t R iver in foreground . ic t f ce n right a is e closu f he w idely used as lap robes and overcoats , the de l e e er w ere the new l was l w en the l one o d c m t y, h hospita bui t h o d w as . mand for hich w constantly mounting As - was n e . to be een s k o the ree le . disma tl d This is s ju t bac f th gab d ' ’ w l n the os t sutler s e The lr le are to the shre d business men , Sublette and Campbell per bui di g ( p hom '. cava y stab s ex re e r en er . I n the en er o the re and to the ex c e ived that under these circumstances a perma t m ight c t c t f pictu , treme rea r (low roofs a nd tops windows just showing'is the nent trading post mus t necessarily replace the of ’ ler r ll o th t er r A e r a e w e e . sut s sto e. f oofs this dat mad of di t h ' moving rendezvous . Indians , not w ite men , ' ' Be l n a t the r o the a s ta re l e n the d am sta ds ight f fl g fi, di cty b hi d ff bulky bu alo pelts , not small beaver skins , must r nn n L r e e n r fou ca o . a ami P ak i the backg ound . w u be dealt ith, and a walled post was conseq ently needed for the safe storage of trade supplies and to the river and the surrounding region in memory Laramé buffalo hides . of jacques (or La Ramie', a trapper The junction of the Laramie and the Platte reported to have been killed about 1 8 21 by Indians Rivers was in the buffalo country of the Sioux and on the banks of the stream now known as the w . had long been used for trade ith the Indians Laramie River . 1 8 34 Here , therefore , early in the summer of , a During its heyday as a fur trading post in the ’ ’ 1 0 a n i 4 s . 83 s d 8 0 trading station was established Rectangular in the early , Fort Laramie was the w 1 5 of I n as . form , the post enclosed by pickets about center the vast fur country of the Rockies two u w feet high . Three blockhouses , at diagonal the spring, goods and s pplies for trading ere o n e f .