Wyoming Forts

Wyoming has some of the best known forts in the west. Fort Laramie and Fort Bridger were busy Oregon Trail stops and both still support active tourist’s trade. Today most westward expansion forts are but footnotes in history books, or even less. I found four Wyoming Forts that have great names, but seem lost to all but a very few locals, too bad they didn’t last.

Fort Nonsense - Built in 1832 by Captain Bonneville, six miles west of present day town of Daniel. It was the first fort built in Wyoming specifically for the fur trade. Before it was finished Bonneville realized it was a bad location, too high and too hard to reach. Bonneville and his company abandoned the fort soon after it was completed. The fort was actually named Fort Bonneville, but it was usually referred to as Fort Nonsense or even Bonneville’s Folly. The fort was a stockade, described as 100-foot square and built of 12-inch cottonwood logs, 15 feet high with blockhouses on opposite diagonal corners. The location was close to several of the famous mountain man rendezvous held in the 1820s and 1830s. But they were held in the summer and Wyoming has great mountain summer weather.

Fort Stand Off - Obscure even to citizens of Wyoming and not found in many history books. That is unless a Teton County history book is checked then one might find something about Fort Stand Off. Some believe it to be more legend than fact. It wasn’t really a fort, nothing like a fort in the military sense. Fort Sand Off was an area surrounded by rocks where outlaws held off U.S. Marshalls. Outlaw Cal Thompson was the most famous of those who used this hideout. Maybe it could have been as famous as Hole-In-The Wall if Butch Cassidy would have used it, instead of Cal Thomas, an outlaw lost in history.

Fort Yellowstone – The Military ran Yellowstone Park from 1886-1918. It was the first National Park and congress had not yet set up a way to manage national parks. The headquarters were at Mammoth Hot springs and were called Fort Sheridan, after the Civil War general, but it was soon changed to the more appropriate Fort Yellowstone.

Fort Davy Crockett – Located in Sweetwater County and named by a man who had a friend killed at the Alamo. Like many obscure forts, in the mountain west, it was a fur trading station. And also like other of these forts, it was short lived, opening in 1836 but reportedly abandoned and falling apart by 1844. Must not have been much of a carpenter who built this one.

Trail Ruts a half mile south of our house and 13 miles out of Fort Laramie

 

Independence Rock Wyoming

Independence Rock, the great registrar of the desert, is one of the most well-known points on the Oregon Trail. From 1843 to 1869 nearly a half million people traveled the Oregon and Mormon Trails through Wyoming.

 

But who named it, and why, Independence Rock? Today state highway 220 takes travelers from Rawlins to Casper and a state rest stop welcomes all to stop at the rock. The rock stands nearly 140 feet above the surrounding country and can be seen for miles. Independence Rock covers 25 acres, and a walk around it would be a tad more than a mile. Wind faceting, (constant blowing of sand particles against a service that polish it like a gem stone), has caused the igneous feldspar to shine more like granite than the lowly common rock it is.

A writer in the 1860s estimated there were between forty and fifty thousand names written on the rock. Some of these names were painted or penciled and soon disappeared. Most were carved and the deeper of these etchings survive to this day. John C. Fremont visited the rock in 1842 and carved a cross, filling it with India rubber. The rubber was Fremont’s attempt to make his cross long lasting, but in modern days it can no longer found. Today about 5,000 names can still be found.

So why Independence Rock? No one is sure. Some historians believe Thomas, Broken-Hand, Fitzpatrick named it in 1824, at the height of the trapper period in Wyoming, after making camp there on July 4.  Others believe General Ashley named it July 4^th 1825. Some say it was none other than Captain Bonneville in 1832 naming it because it stood independent of the prairies around it.

A town grew up near the rock but soon faded, today only memories survive. It doesn’t matter who gave the large turtle shaped rock its name, what matters is this great landmark of the Oregon and Mormon Trail stands today exactly as it did in the 1800s.