Fort Laramie NHS -- nr Laramie WY
N 42° 12.322 W 104° 33.453
13T E 536524 N 4672673
The three great emigrant trails of the 1850s-60s all passed through Fort Laramie WY, as did the Pony Express and several stagecoach routes.
Waymark Code: WMK2FK
Location: Wyoming, United States
Date Posted: 02/02/2014
Views: 6
Fort Laramie was not only an important link in the chain of frontier forts, it was also a protector and stopping place for each of the three great emigrant trails of the Manifest Destiny era, the Oregon Trail, the California Trail, and the Mormon Trail. Fort Laramie was a major station on the Pony Express Trail, the Deadwood Stage, the Cheyenne Stage, and the Bozeman Trail.
From the National Register Nomination form: (
visit link)
"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."