Historic Fort Sanders is gone but a few reminders are left
If it hadn’t been for Grace Raymond Hebard, University of W’yoming’s first librarian and a Board of Trustees member, hardly anything would be left today to mark the location of Fort Sanders three miles south of Laramie. This military outpost was authorized by the U.S. Department of War on July 10, 1866, and construction commenced two days later. Within three months Fort Sanders was occupied, though building and fully staffing it continued through 1867.
The first transcontinental telegraph line was strung along the Oregon Trail (north of the Laramie Basin) in 1861 and that year Ben Holladay’s Overland Sage line was in service to Salt Lake City. In 1862 the mail route and the stage line moved south to what came to be known as the Cherokee Trail through the Laramie Basin. The building of the Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) had stalled in Omaha after a false start in 1863, though the route through the Basin was all but assured. In May of 1866, with the Civil War over, track-laying began in earnest.
Trouble with Native American tribes intensified in 1866. Tribe members cut telegraph lines and attacked railroad builders. Military forts were authorized to protect the railroad crews, the telegraph and stage lines, and the westward wagon trains headed to California and Oregon. Two wagon roads, one coming up from Denver and the other coming west from Nebraska, crossed the Big Laramie River in the vicinity of what would become Fort Sanders and Laramie City.
Early history
Pioneer ranchers Phillip Mandel and J.R. Whitehead advised the military on the best location for a fort at the Big Laramie. Whitehead received the contract for building the log outpost. Mandel hauled some supplies to build it, as did Michael Carroll, who also became an early settler.
Initially, its name was to be Fort John Buford, but when it was discovered that another of the same name already existed elsewhere, the name was quickly changed to Fort Sanders. It is always written “Fort” Sanders, not “Ft.” in military correspondence. The new name was to honor U.S. Cavalry Brigadier General William P. Sanders, who died in 1863 of wounds suffered in Civil War action near Knoxville, Tennessee.
This fort never had a stockade around it as some frontier forts had, and most of the buildings were of log construction. Two were built of stone: the ammunition storage arsenal and the “guard house” where soldiers who had misbehaved were imprisoned. As with many other frontier forts, the most common offenses of soldiers were liquor infractions and desertion, with severe punishment if a deserter were found. One such deserter, John Riley, was sentenced to wear a 24-pound ball with 6-foot chain for six months in the guard house before being dishonorably discharged.
Reports do not indicate that there ever were attacks on Fort Sanders itself, though its regiments were deployed regularly to assist other troops engaging in battles with tribes. That included participation in Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer’s Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. The first commanding officer was Lieutenant Colonel Henry Mizner of Company F, 18th U.S. Infantry. A year later, the chief officer was Colonel John Gibbon for a year, then command went to 11 others until 1882 when Lieutenant Colonel Edwin C. Mason became the final commander upon dissolution of the fort.
Laramie City interactions
Almost two years after the establishment of Fort Sanders, in May of 1868, UPRR tracks reached the previously surveyed site for Laramie City three miles north of the military headquarters. That began what newspaperman William E. Chaplin, who arrived in 1873, recalled as a mostly beneficial interplay of the military with settlers, some of it enriching the economy and social life of Laramie. However, he noted, “Every payday there were lively times in town and the provost guard was kept busy with frisky soldiers.” Chaplin also suggested in an article published in the Cheyenne State Leader on September 10, 1924, that the economic benefits to Laramie City, mostly “went to the saloons, gambling houses and kindred resorts, but finally percolated into the general channels of trade.”
One complication for Laramie townspeople has been researched by Kim Viner and is posted as “Laramie’s Fort Sanders Problem.” His report is available on the website of the Albany County Historical Society (wyoachs.com). Viner revealed the legal confusion resulting from the sale of land within the boundary of the fort, which Congress had given to the UPRR as incentive for railroad-building. Settlers who bought lots from the railroad could not get clear title to them until Congress straightened out which entity owned the land, the Department of War or the UPRR. It took up to seven years after purchase to settle that problem.
Fort Sanders had military doctors, a small “hospital”, and a guard house for miscreants that provided services that the new town did not have. Post commanders complained of Laramie law enforcement officers taking advantage of post facilities to bring ill or indigent persons that Laramie had no resources to care for. Viner reports that before Laramie had a jail, Albany County Sheriff N.K. Boswell took prisoners to the guard house and after receiving a bill for their keep from the military, requested that Wyoming Territory pay. The Territorial Treasurer refused. Boswell sued the Territory, and the Territorial Supreme Court found in Boswell’s favor.
Fort Sanders provided entertainment for settlers through its military band, led by Joseph Nevotti, “a musician of national repute” according to Chaplin. He reported that every Sunday there were horse and buggy parades to the fort for open-air band concerts. Other entertainments are documented in “History of Fort Sanders, Wyoming” by Ray Revere. It is a 1960 UW Master’s thesis available online through Coe Library that contains many statistics about fort personnel and events. Civilians came to conduct church services and to hold Masonic gatherings as well as to attend social events. Revere reports that many civilians were employed or regularly visited. Some even lived there as squatters.
Dissolution
According to military documents in Revere’s thesis, the number of soldiers stationed at Fort Sanders averaged about 200, with a high of 435 in 1868. Orders came on May 18, 1882 to close it. Troops at the garrison were ordered to Fort D.A. Russell (now Francis E. Warren Air Force Base) in Cheyenne except for 10 enlisted men and one officer, pending disposition of the property. Much of it was acquired by homesteaders; many buildings were moved to Laramie.
The Cavalryman Steakhouse is on the site of the former fort. It had been built in 1925 as the clubhouse for Laramie’s golf course. Just south of the Cavalryman property are the roofless and crumbling walls of the fort’s stone arsenal. In the 1930s, U.S. Highway 287 was rerouted directly through the parade grounds of the old fort, thus obliterating any potential for reconstruction. The original route of the highway to Ft. Collins was named “Fort Sanders Road,”
Fort Marker
On July 18, 1914, a banner headline in the Laramie Boomerang proclaimed: “Laramie Marked Grand Old Fort Sanders To-day—A Patriotic Act.” Governor Joseph M. Carey gave an address and numerous other dignitaries spoke. At least 50 automobiles brought the entire summer school student body of UW, according to Hebard’s account of the event. The guard house was the only structure left that was still essentially intact at that time.
The marker had been authorized by the Wyoming Legislature in 1913 through the appropriation of $2,500 for 40 markers on historic sites in Wyoming. However, the one at Fort Sanders was substantially increased in size and engraved in granite with extra donations from the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and the Overland Trail Commission. Hebard, in addition to being a UW faculty member, was an active volunteer for memorializing Wyoming’s historic trails, and a DAR member. She wrote that the marker recognized the “substantial and conspicuous role [of the fort] in bringing the railroad and civilization to this part of Wyoming.” Her Fort Sanders scrapbook is in the collection of the UW American Heritage Center.
Originally, the marker had been placed along what is now Fort Sanders Road, a continuation of Laramie’s downtown 2nd St. which had a grade-level crossing of the railroad tracks. But when the highway route was moved, the marker was relocated to the north side of the guardhouse–there is no direct access to it from U.S. 287 now. To find it, take the first turn west after crossing the railroad overpass just south of Laramie. Follow the road as it turns south. A little north of the Mountain Cement Company, turn left onto Kiowa Road. The marker is on the south side of that road, within the chain link and barbed wire fence that encircles the guard house.
In 1980 the guard house and monument were placed on the National Register of Historic Places. At that time the log roof beams were still in place though without any roofing. Now, the beams are gone, though most of the stone walls remain. The property is owned by Albany County and managed by the Albany County Historic Preservation Board.
By Judy Knight
A photo of the guard house when it still had log roof beams, along with more information about Fort Sanders can be found at the website for the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office, wyoshpo@wyo.gov (search for “Fort Sanders.”). Though the property is fenced, there is a gate that can be opened on the east side where the main entrance to the guard house was. One can stand inside the building and picture the unfortunate military deserter John Riley inside the small building, wearing his 24-pound ball and chain for six months.
Caption: Guard house ruins, Fort Sanders National Historic Site, on Kiowa Road in South Laramie, and the historic marker dedicated on July 18, 1914, now behind a protective chain link fence.
Caption: Ruins of the arsenal at Fort Sanders on private land south of the Cavalryman Steakhouse in the distant background. It is on the east side of U.S. Highway 287, three miles south of Laramie city limits. These two are the only structural remnants at the site of Fort Sanders, which was a garrison on the frontier from 1866-1882 in Wyoming Territory.
Photo credit for both photos: Judy Knight, Nov. 5, 2024.