Laramie Wyoming

What a crazy place I live in.
No, not that way crazy, but a crazy name.

Laramie, named after a French-Canadian trapper, Jacques LaRamie. He came to Wyoming Territory to trap no earlier than 1816 and was killed by the Arapaho in the winter of either 1818 or 1819. According to Jim Bridger who came to the area a few years later LaRamie was well liked and respected as an honest trader by Indians of the area.

So why was he killed? No one knows but likely for whatever possessions he had with him at the time. And no one can say with absolute certainty that it was Arapaho who killed him, although most stories back up this belief.
Today the city of Laramie is named after him along with: Laramie Peak, the Laramie Plains, and the Laramie Range of the Rockies, Laramie County (Home of Cheyenne, Wyoming’s state capital), the Laramie River, the Little Laramie River, and maybe others I cannot think of right now.

So what did he do that warranted naming more things after him than any other person except James Bridger? No one knows, but Laramie City was a true wild and wooly Wild West town in the late 1860s when the railroad first came to town. Jacques LaRamie, a true symbol of the times long past seemed to be a fitting name for an area changing so rapidly.

LaRamie was a pioneer, trapper, explorer and trader in this area and we don’t even know his real name. There were many Jacques with French last names during this time in history so somewhere along the way historians assigned him Jacques as his first name. LaRamie may have been one of many trappers who went by only one simple name (and to think people today think, Elvis and Cher came up with this idea). Not sure why historians thought he needed anything other than just LaRamie.

-N-