Fort Laramie Park History, 1834-1977

Military events of 1857-1859 gave urgency to the need to strengthen the garrison and its facilities. Fort Laramie now became a vitally important supply depot and staging area for troops on campaign. It also became a major link in the vital life-line of rapidly expanding transcontinental transportation and communications.

No sooner were the Sioux subdued than the Cheyenne were antagonized by the imprisonment and death of one of their number at the fort, and vowed revenge. Minor clashes with troops were followed by murderous attacks on travellers. In the summer of 1857 Colonel E. V. Sumner with troops from Forts Leavenworth and Laramie tracked the Cheyenne down in western Kansas where he scattered a battle line of braves by a spirited cavalry charge, and destroyed their lodges.

Meanwhile Fort Laramie was caught up in the so-called Utah or Mormon War, launched on the basis of complaints by "Gentiles" about the high-handed tactics of the "Saints." Though a military fiasco, the Utah Expedition did ensure the pacification of the alleged rebels, taught the Army valuable lessons about the logistics and magnitude of a large-scale western campaign, and brought about a revolution in frontier transportation that helped bridge a continent.

In October, 1857 an expedition of some 2,500 troops under Colonel A. S. Johnston advanced from Fort Laramie toward Salt Lake City. The Mormon strategy of harassing and burning the long supply trains, coupled with snow and zero weather which decimated the animals, caused the failure of this monumental effort, and the troops were compelled to spend a bleak winter of near-starvation at Fort Bridger, which also had been put to the torch by the zealous Mormon legions. To quell this obstinate rebellion Congress authorized more regiments, and heroic efforts were made to dispatch more equipment and supplies via Fort Laramie. Before the aggrieved and reinforced Army could move once more, behind-the-scenes diplomatic maneuvers brought about a peaceful settlement.

An impressive consequence of this abortive campaign was the spurt in growth of oxen-powered freight trains up the Platte. The dominant factor in this booming business was the firm of Russell, Majors and Waddell, which operated out of Leavenworth and Nebraska City. To fulfill their contract with the Army in 1858, they had to round up some 4,000 wagons, 45,000 oxen, "two acres of ox-yokes," and some 5,000 teamsters or "bull-whackers." The typical freighter was the classic big sway-backed prairie schooner or Conestoga wagon which could hold 2-1/2 tons, and was served by 6 to 8 teams. William H. Jackson's sketches vividly portray scenes from ox-team days. Another important innovation in cross-country transit was the development of overland U. S. mail service. The Platte-South Platte route was the earliest of all transcontinental routes, serving first Utah and later California until the advent of the Union Pacific Railroad to the south. Fort Laramie was the principal station and guardian of this vital service on the High Plains.

The Army always had its own courier service, but the public mail service across the Plains and Mountains began in 1850 when S. H. Woodson was awarded a contract to carry mail between Independence and Salt Lake City. Primitive conditions prevented dependable service until 1854 when W. Magraw got the contract and started the first chain of manned stations along the Platte, but the Sioux raids that followed the Grattan affair soon disrupted his efforts. In 1858 the Hockaday line was able to bring mail from Missouri to the fort, by mule cart, in just 12 days.

In 1858 the first official mail route to California followed the Southern route via Fort Smith and Tucson, but in 1861 this was switched to the Central route, and then stayed there as the result of two melodramatic happenings — the Pony Express experiment, which demonstrated the geographical superiority of the Central route, and the Civil War, which killed the Southern route politically.

Russell, Majors, and Waddell, the entrepreneurs of overland freighting, launched the Pony Express in a calculated effort to get the mail contract for the Central route by proving that it offered speedier service than the longer Southern route and that this service could be maintained through all seasons. The terminals were St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California, with intermittent stations for changes of mount at approximate intervals of 15 miles, and "swing stations" for changes of riders at intervals of 100 miles. The first west-bound rider galloped into Fort Laramie on April 6, 1860, just three days out of St. Joseph. It took 20 riders and 75 horses an average of 10-1/2 days, over 2,000 miles, to reach Sacramento. The great gamble paid off but not, ironically, for the three partners. Early in 1861 Congress authorized a daily mail by stage and semi-weekly Pony Express via Fort Laramie, but the $1,000,000 contract went to Ben Holliday who had pioneered the Southern route. By this contract also overland mail coaches carrying passengers began operating from St. Joseph to San Francisco via Fort Laramie on an 18-day schedule.

Meanwhile the poles and wires of the first transcontinental telegraph line were stretching out across the land. The telegraph reached Fort Laramie in September, 1861, and was completed to Salt Lake City, connecting with a line from the West Coast on October 4. This date, making possible instant communication between the East and California, marked the end of the Pony Express. Though a financial failure that bankrupted its originators, it was a meteoric achievement that would forever symbolize American enterprise.

From 1855 to 1860 covered wagon migration to Utah and California continued, though at a moderate level, on the order of 30,000 for the period. The year 1856 seems to have been the most populous one. That year also saw the first of the Mormon handcart companies, composed mainly of English converts who pushed their strenuous way west without benefit of draft animals.

The decline in travel up the North Platte may be attributed in part to the Pike's Peak Gold Rush of 1859-1860, following the discovery of gold in 1858 on the South Platte near Cherry Creek, a site which soon became the boom city of Denver. The old trappers' trail between Fort Laramie and Bent's Fort on the Arkansas now became a busy Denver-Fort Laramie Road. For a brief time the fort served as the nearest post office to the new Eldorado.