Few places capture the changing history of the Northern Plains as clearly as Fort Laramie. Standing near the meeting of the Laramie and North Platte rivers in present-day eastern Wyoming, it began as a private trading post and grew into a military installation at the center of westward expansion. Its transformation mirrors the larger story of the region in the nineteenth century.
A fur-trade beginning
Fort Laramie originated in the 1830s as a trading post built to serve the fur and hide trade. Traders exchanged manufactured goods for buffalo robes and furs brought in by Native and non-Native hunters alike. In this era the post was a place of commerce and contact, where Plains nations and traders met to do business. It changed hands among trading companies over the years and became a well-known landmark on the emerging overland routes.
Gateway on the trails
As emigration across the Plains increased in the 1840s, Fort Laramie became an important waypoint on the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails. Travelers stopped there to rest, resupply, and repair their wagons before pressing on toward the mountains. The post grew familiar to countless emigrants as a milestone on the long journey west.
This growing traffic changed the character of the region and increased the federal government interest in the area. Protecting the trails and managing relations with Plains nations became pressing concerns.
Becoming an army post
In 1849 the United States Army acquired Fort Laramie and turned it into a military post. From then on it served as a base for soldiers assigned to guard the trails, support government activities, and project federal authority across the Northern Plains. It was in this setting that the great treaty councils of 1851 and 1868 became associated with the fort, even though the 1851 gathering itself took place downriver at Horse Creek.
For decades Fort Laramie stood at the crossroads of trade, migration, diplomacy, and conflict. It witnessed negotiations and departures, arrivals and partings, in a period of profound change for the peoples of the Plains.
A place of memory
Today Fort Laramie is preserved as a national historic site, its remaining buildings recalling the many chapters of its past. Its history helps visitors understand how a single place could move from fur-trade post to trail stop to army fort, tracing the arc of the region transformation. To read more, see our articles on the overland trails and the Horse Creek council, or browse the 1851 treaty history category.
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