The Fort Laramie Historic site spreads over almost 850 acres in the southeastern corner of Wyoming. It is WELL WORTH A VISIT! there is enough history here to interest ANYBODY -- Indian Wars, Military forts, Treaties, westward expansion, gold rush, Oregon Trail, Mormon Trail, Pony Express, Deadwood stage, early medicine practices, frontier civil engineering -- Blasterz spent 4 hours here, and still do not feel like we saw it all! We'd have stayed longer but had to get to Scotts Bluff NE before it closed :( We almost not quite BARELY made it - but that's another story for another waymark.
From the National Register nomination form: (
visit link)
Fort Laramie National Historic District comprises 536 acres, while the Fort Laramie National Historic Site consists of 832.45 acres. The discontiguous National Register boundary for the bridge contains less than one acre. . . . There are 36 significant physical remains at Fort Laramie that provide the context for understanding the people and events associated with the park. . . .
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The historical significance of Fort Laramie National Historic Site is manifest, as it played a prime role in the long epic of the frontier and is a tangible reminder of that heroic past. Fort Laramie is significant in terms of the role it played in the Northern Rockies' fur trade. It was an oasis for the westward bound immigrants the only outpost of civilization for the 800-mile span between Fort Kearney, Nebraska, and Fort Bridger, Wyoming. Historic trails and routes that passed through Fort Laramie, in addition to the Oregon and California Trails, were the Mormon Trail, Bozeman Trail, Pony Express Route, Transcontinental Telegraph Route, and the Deadwood and Cheyenne Stage.
Fort Laramie served as headquarters for military campaigns on the northern plains. Great Indian Councils that attempted to bring peace to the land occurred here. The fort witnessed the development of the open range cattle industry, the coming of homesteaders, and the settlement of the plains that marked the closing of the frontier. Today its physical remains and its history enable visitors to understand that short, swift-moving era in which the frontier swept to the Pacific Ocean, turned back to include the high plains and the mountain ranges, and forged a nation across the continent. This site focuses in one small spot the triumph and the tragedy, the virtues and the violence, and the dream and the reality of Manifest Destiny."