Fort Laramie, Wyoming Fort Laramie,
Wyoming was located at the Crossroads of a Nation Moving West. In 1834, where the
Cheyenne and
Arapaho traveled, traded and hunted, a fur trading post was created. Though it was not a military fort at first, it was called Fort William and soon became known as a place of safety, as settlers moved across the continent.
By the 1840s, wagon trains rested and re-supplied here, bound for
Oregon,
California, and
Utah. In 1841, Fort John was constructed, replacing the original wooden stockade of Fort William. Built of adobe brick, Fort John stood on a bluff overlooking the Laramie River. It was named for John Sarpy, a partner in the American Fur Company, but was more commonly called Fort Laramie by employees and travelers.
Fort Laramie, the military post, was founded in 1849 when the army purchased the old Fort John for $4000, and began to build a military outpost along the Oregon Trail. For many years, the Plains
Indians and the travelers along the Oregon Trail had coexisted peacefully. As the numbers of emigrants increased, however, tensions between the two cultures began to develop.
