One Day in Wyoming--TRIP 3 (2012)

This is an agricultural area. They grow wheat, dry-land beans, corn, potatoes, millet and lots of sugar beets. The millet loves dryness, but in this country it's used mostly for bird seed. Most of the wheat goes to Colorado for winter cattle feed. Andy kept reading this morning while I worked on college essays. "The Chamber of Commerce calls this the prettiest part of Nebraska, but it does get cold here," he said. We headed out at 9:00 a.m.  It was 34 degrees.
In Wyoming we passed the Dinklage Feeding Lot with thousands of penned cattle. The stench, which didn't pass as aromatic, was evident more than a mile away downwind. Heaven help the poor residents who live close by or the inmates in the state prison on adjoining property!
Wyoming is one of the few states that doesn't have a state income tax, but that's also because almost no one lives here! The bluffs of Nebraska, that accented the terrain, disappeared. Instead, we passed fields of hay, grass and dried corn and a line of rolling dried-out hills in the distance.

Buildings from the military period of Fort Laramie
survive because homesteaders lived in them and public agencies
later worked to preserve them.

Beginning in 1825 for 16 years, trappers met here near Fort Laramie at annual "rendezvous" to exchange furs for supplies and trade goods and to celebrate a successful season.Then, Fort Laramie, the principal military outpost on the Northern Plains in the 1800's, was built in 1834 at the crossroads of a nation moving West. Some call it "America's most famous military post." For three hours we walked the grounds, read the descriptions, watched the 18-minute video and learned about the history of the old post in Wyoming. For 56 years, the epic story of America's westward expansion played out here on a grand scale.
The first Fort Laramie, officially named Fort William after its sponsor William Sublette, was constructed at the confluence of the Laramie and North Platte Rivers in 1834. The small cottonwood-stockaded fort capitalized on the fur trade in beaver pelts and on lucrative buffalo robe trade with Northern Plains Indians. Buffalo robes replaced beaver pelts by the late 1830's.
In 1841, the deteriorating old logs were purchased for $10,000 and replaced by a larger adobe structure, renamed Fort John. Traders supplanted trappers. Indians camped near the fort and traded buffalo robes for a variety of goods, including blankets, tobacco, powder, lead, sugar and beads. Destined to become a way station for emigrants traveling westward, Fort John serviced thousands who headed for Oregon and California, seeking the promise of land and gold, and for Mormons, looking for religious freedom.

Beds for soldiers line the two bays of the Cavalry Barracks
on the second floor.

Emigration peaked in the early 1850's at 50,000 annual travelers. The Fort's emigrant season only lasted about 45 days each year in the late spring, but the stop was convenient for the travelers--about a third of the way between their Missouri River "jumping off place" and their Oregon or California destination or half way for Mormons bound to Utah.
But declining buffalo trade prompted the owners of the American Fur Company to sell the fort to the U.S. government in 1849 for $4,000. Officially named Fort Laramie after a French explorer Jacques La Remee, who by now had been forgotten, the fort expanded to become the largest and most important military post on the Northern Plains.
Life for the enlisted men on the frontier was rigid routine of drill and boring "fatigue duties" like building roads, cutting and storing ice, and cleaning manure. Combat was rare. Discipline for even minor infractions of rules could mean severe penalties. We read that punishments included branding, stringing up by the thumbs, marching with packs of heavy weights, and jail. The desertion rate was 33 percent from 1865 to 1890 on the frontier.

Andy sits outside the Officers' Quarters
on Officers' Row.

Fort Laramie witnessed rapid advances in communications technology, as stage lines, Pony Express and transcontinental telegraph passed through.After the fort became a military post and emigrant traffic mushroomed on the overland trails, tensions with Native Americans increased. The fort hosted treaty negotiations with Native Americans. Ten thousand Indians gathered here for the Horse Creek Treaty of 1851, which the U.S. Congress never ratified, and the controversial Treaty of 1868.

Ruins of Officers' Row show
the extent of Fort Laramie, a small
city on the frontier in the 1800's.

In 1851, the Northern Plains Indian nations pledged not to harass emigrants in exchange for $50,000 in annuity goods. In the Treaty of 1865, the U.S. agreed to Red Cloud's demand that the military abandon three forts along the Bozeman Trail to Montana where miners headed for gold and silver finds. In exchange, Red Cloud would stop attacking those on the trail. But gold finds in the Black Hills, the Sioux's sacred land, lured the greedy mineral-seekers, and the government couldn't stop them.

Five solitary isolation cells
from the Old Guardhouse illustrate
harsh punishment used as discipline.

Ultimately Fort Laramie became base of operations for military actions against the Plains Indians.
When Indian Wars ended, the importance of Fort Laramie diminished, and the old post sold at public auction in 1890. The buildings most in demand were the horse stables made of wood. They were torn down as emigrants demanded building materials for homes on the prairie.
The fort slowly deteriorated for 48 years until it became part of the National Park system in 1938.
Our tour of the buildings of Fort Laramie taught some interesting historical facts:
1. At the Old Bakery (1876) and the New Bakery (1883) bakers prepared up to 700 18-ounce loaves of break daily. Bread was a staple of the soldier's diet. Each soldier got one loaf a day.
2. The Old Guardhouse was built to hold 40 prisoners at once, but records show it often held more. Prisoners had no furniture, heat, light or latrines.

"Old Bedlam" houses bachelor officers.

3. Five jail cells at the Old Guardhouse were unearthed in excavations. These cells for solitary confinement were 5 x 3 feet with 5-foot ceilings. Most soldiers could not stand up or lie down, and punishment in solitary for repeat offenders could be as much as two weeks.

Here the General Sink of the North
Platte River is the site of the
Latrine and the laundry.

4. The General Sink was a big latrine for four companies with sewage channelled into the Laramie River.
5.  "Old Bedlam," a big white two-story house, was built for bachelor officers and is the oldest documented building in Wyoming.

Cavalry Barracks offers housing for
several companies of soldiers.

 6. The Post Trader's Store (1849), built and owned by a civilian who was licensed by the Army, profited from soldiers, Indians, gold seekers and emigrants. It contained an officer's club and an enlisted men and civilians' bar. His house was among the most ornate at the post.
7. Cavalry Barracks, the largest building at the Fort, housed two  or three companies of soldiers who slept in square bays upstairs. The kitchen and mess rooms were downstairs.
8. The Hospital, the first lime-concrete building at Fort Laramie, included a dispensary, kitchen, dining room, isolation room, surgeon's office and 12-bed ward.

The Hospital Ruins show the extent
of the 12-bed facility.

As Andy and I meandered along the pathways from building to building, we recorded our own interesting observations. 1. "I could move right in," he said. "It seems so comfortable, at least for a ranking officer."  2. The school established at the Fort in 1852 was the first public school in Wyoming. This school closed in 2004, ending a 152-year tradition of public education on the western frontier. 3. In the 1850's and 1860's the chaplain of the Fort was responsible for education. It met with varying degrees of effectiveness. In 1881, the Fort Commander took responsibility for education. 4. In the 1870's and 1880's, teachers were soldiers who got paid an additional 35 cents a day for teaching. Subjects included reading, penmanship, arithmetic, history and geography. Guy V. Henry Jr. said, "We learned most about lightning, thunder, vapors and local geography."He remembered when two captured deserters were brought in as the teachers. "Whatever they said was less spectacular than their appearance in heavy iron shackles," he said. Jake Tomamichel explained that teachers rarely lasted more than one contract--a year. He said that many got drunk so they would be fired. 5. The teamsters who drove the wagon trains were the truck drivers of the 19th century. The freighting firm of Russell, Majors and Wadell required 3500 wagons, 40,000 oxen, 1000 mules and 4000 drivers to fill the government contract of 1858 for supplying the fort. A wagonmaster could earn $150 a month. Salaries for their 52 civilian employees at the fort in 1875 ranged from $35 to $125 a month.

The office of the Commanding Officer
of Fort Laramie shows his
authority and status.

At the Visitor Center, Ranger Mary offered perspectives about the Fort and a copy of "The Journal of Ada A. Vogdes," an Army wife in 1868. "Come visit next week and we'll have a reenactment of the Treaty of 1868 signing," she coaxed. "We've invited schools in the area carte blanche."
What teacher could resist such a neat learning experience! Oh, to have unlimited time... and I guess unlimited funds to pay for the time! I'd stay in a minute.

Commanding Officers live in comfort,
even on the frontier.

In 1875-1876, Congress funded construction of a bridge over the North Platte River to ease emigration and travel for pioneers crossing the river and to allow the military to muster troops for attacks on the Plains Indians who refused to relinquish the Black Hills. The three-span bridge, 400 feet long, was constructed for a total cost of $15,000.Late in the afternoon we stopped at North Platte National Wildlife Refuge near Harvey, Nebraska. Terribly dry, the black grasses crunched under our feet and in half an hour we never saw a bird. We followed the dike in. "This isn't the trail," said Andy, turning off to his left. We followed an animal path into land that was usually under water. "I read that rattlesnakes only hang out by the fallen logs," he assured me. Temperatures had risen to the low 70's. We worked our way back to the main dike. "I think it goes in a loop," he insisted.

Spanning the unpredictable North Platte
River, this bridge in 1876 provided
easier crossing for emigrants and soldiers.

"Not according to the map you had yesterday," I answered.
"Okay, let's take this trail back now," he decided. Not a trail at all, the path ended. For ten minutes we bushwhacked our way back to the main dike.
The National Wildlife Refuge builds trails and establishes pullouts but does a terrible job of maintaining them. It was a disappointing hike.
Back at the motel we relaxed, read and worked on editing. Periodically I jumped as what sounded like thunder rolled across the street. With the window open, the room shook. Trucks unloaded tons of sugar beets onto the open-air pile at the Western Sugar Cooperative, a company of 500 employees full time and part time. Business seemed brisk... certainly noisy!