Fort Caspar
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Fort Caspar was a military post of the United States Army located in present-day Casper, Wyoming (which is named for the fort). Founded in the 1859 as a trading post along the Oregon Trail, it was located on the North Platte River. It was later taken over by the Army and renamed and used during 1865 as protection of emigrants and the telegraph line against raids from Lakota and Cheyenne in the ongoing wars between those nations and the United States. The fort was named for 2LT. Caspar Collins, a U.S. Army officer who was on the post only one night when he was killed in the Battle of the Platte Bridge Station against the Lakota and Cheyenne at the site.. The site of the fort is listed in the National Register of Historic Places now owned by the City of Casper and operated the Fort Caspar Museum and Historic Site.
[edit] History
The fort was located on the south side of the North Platte, on the western edge of present-day Casper, where the Emigrant Trail crossed from the south side to the north side of the river. In 1847, during the first Mormon wagon train to present-day Utah, Brigham Young commissioned a ferry at the site for later emigrants. The ferry consisted of cottonwood dugout canoes and planking for a deck, with two oars and a rudder. On June 19, Brigham Young named nine men to remain to operate the ferry while the remainder of the party continued the journey westward. A group of Mormons returned to the site each summer between 1847 and 1852 to operate the ferry. The ferry was moved to a different spot on the North Platte in North Casper in 1849. It was eventually replaced with a rope-and-pulley system that could make the crossing in five minutes.
In the following years, trader John Baptiste Richard established a trading post downriver of the crossing. The U.S. Army established its first presence in the area in 1855, erecting Fort Clay near Richard's trading post. In 1859, when the site was part of the Nebraska Territory, Louis Guinard built a bridge at the trading post, called the Platte Bridge Station, at the site of the old Mormon Ferry crossing. From 1860–1861, the Pony Express operated a station at the site.
By the middle 1860s, the increasing presence of emigrants and other white settlers in the region began to cause friction with the Lakota and Cheyenne. In response, and partly to protect the new telegraph line, the United States Army in 1861 began increasing its deployment of troops in the region, sending a detachment to guard Guinard's bridge. In 1862 the Army purchased the Guinard's Platte Bridge station. In July of 1865, partly in response to the Sand Creek Massacre the previous November in Colorado, a party of several thousand Cheyenne and Lakota, including the famous chief Red Cloud, attacked a wagon train escorted by a Lt. Collins, which was attempting to reach the post from Sweetwater Station. Collins and his men were overwhelmed by Native American warriors as they crossed the bridge, and although they attempted to fight their way back, Collins and three other soldiers were killed. The battle became known as the Battle of Platte River Bridge. The Army officially renamed the post to honor Collins. An existing post was already called Fort Collins, named after Collins' father, and thus the Army used Collins' first name. In response to the attacks, the Army established a permanent garrison of 100 troops at the site.
The fort was abandoned two years later in August, 1867, with the garrison moved to Fort Fetterman at Douglas, Wyoming. Fort Caspar was partially reconstructed in 1936 using sketches made by Lt. Collins in 1863. The City of Casper now operates an open air museum at the site, which features reconstructed log buildings, including a wooden stockade. The site also includes a replica of the Mormon ferry that was operated there between 1847 and 1849, as well as a model of part of the bridge that later replaced the ferry. In early December the members of the living history group portraying Company I 3rd US Vol. Infantry (a galvanised yankee unit) host a historical re-enactment at the site.
To visit Fort Caspar, travel to Casper, Wyoming, and then travel 1.5 miles (2.41 km) west along 13th Street to historic Fort Caspar.
