An Early History of Fort Laramie
Fort Laramie’s ideal location made it one of the major forts on the early American frontier.
Good business is all about location, location, location. This isn’t just true in the 21st century either. Instead, good businessmen have always known the importance of selecting a good location as a starting point for a successful business. New York City’s harbor and location made it an ideal place for business when Europeans first started settling in North America. Situated at the junction of the Mississippi River and the Missouri River, St. Louis is another ideal location and served as the jumping-off point for mountain men and other western explorers. As business became more and more common in the western lands, entrepreneurs looked toward the blank slate they had and tried to determine where it would be good to do business. It was under those circumstances that Fort Laramie would eventually come to be.
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In 1834, fur traders William Sublette and Robert Campbell were looking for a location to build a new fort. In addition to the beaver skins trade in the Rockies, new markets for buffalo hides were already beginning to crop up. The two entrepreneurs determined to build their fort where the Laramie River dumped into the North Platte River. Not only was this location ideal due to the rivers, but it was situated at a fairly central latitude for American territory at the time. They ended up completing a small log structure (roughly 80 by 100) and actually named it Fort William.
Campbell and Sublette didn’t retain control very long and by 1835 had sold the fort to Fontenelle, Fitzpatrick, and Company who within a year sold to the American Fur Company. Under the ownership of the American Fur Company, the fort enjoyed great success in the buffalo hide for several years. Luckily, when Alfred Jacob Miller traveled west in 1837 he stopped to sketch the fort and later turned it into this painting below.
Fort William 1837 painted by Alfred Jacob Miller. Rising from the endless plains it would have been quite a sight to see. Photo via wikicommons.
Another look from AJ Miller, this time at the interior. As one might expect, the fort was a busy place. Photo via wikicommons.
By 1841 the fort was doing so well in the hide trade it had gained a competitor. Within a mile of the existing fort, a man named Lancaster Lupton built a fort called Fort Platte. With hundreds of miles in all directions to build the new fort, you can probably imagine the reaction by the folks at Fort William. This new fort was successful and took away a good share of the hide trade from Fort William. Now that they had competition, the American Fur Company decided to rebuild their small structure into a new, stronger, and more impressive one. This time they decided to change the name….to Fort John. To add to the confusion of the name, according to Merrill J. Mattes in his book “The Great Platte River Road,” even at this time emigrants were commonly referring to it was Fort Laramie. Heck, just call it whatever you want to right?
Whatever folks called it, they did seemed to be impressed by the beautiful adobe walls and high stockade rising out of the grassland. Famous explorer John C. Freemont describes the fort as such:
“This was a large post, having more the air of military construction than the fort at the mouth of the river. It is on the left bank, on a rising ground some twenty-five feet above the water; and its lofty walls, whitewashed and picketed, with large bastions at the angles, gave it quite an imposing appearance in the uncertain light of evening….
“I walked up to vising our friends at the fort, which is a quadrangular structure, built of clay, after the fashion of the Mexicans, who are generally employed in building them. The walls are about fifteen feet high, surmounted with a wooden palisade, and form a portion of ranges of housed, which entirely surround a yard of about one hundred and thirty feet square. There are two entrances. Over the great entrance is a square tower with loopholes…built of earth.”
John C. Freemont - 1842
If you are reading Jemmey Fletcher: A Tyrant’s Road to Oregon you’ll know that Jemmey met an old French friend at the fort on their way to Oregon. Due to its exceptional location, Fort Laramie really was a place were people converged to do business. Adventurer Francis Parkman describes it this way:
“Leading our horses into the area, we found Inds.-men, women and children - standing around, voyageurs and trappers - the surrounding apartments occupied by squaws and children of the traders…The emigrants’ party passed, the upper ford, and a troop of women came into the fort, invading our room without scruple or reserve. Yankee curiosity and questioning is nothing to those of these people.”
As mentioned in this journal, and in Tyrant’s Road to Oregon, Fort Laramie was a favorite stop for the pioneers. During the early Oregon Trail years it was used as a place to buy a few things here and there if you had to. Another benefit about its location, at least from the point of view of the owners, was that by the time pioneers got to the fort they would be willing to pay higher than average prices for whatever they decided they had to have.
By 1849, traffic had picked up enough on the Oregon Trail that the government felt the need to get involved to protect settlers. It was then that the US Army bought the fort, officially named it Fort Laramie, and operated many of its western operations out of it. During the next 40 years, Fort Laramie would be a place to sign treaties, trade goods, meet, mingle, house troops, and stop and rest. It was important for whites and Native Americans alike for a variety of reasons. Partly, Fort Laramie proved to be such a successful fort because when the first foundations were laid at a great location in the Ameican West.
