184 years ago, the first business in Wyoming was also the first business west of the Missouri River. In 1834, at the confluence of the Laramie and North Platte Rivers, frontiersman Robert Campbell built a small post to trade with the Cheyenne, Sioux, and others. It did well with buffalo robe trade, but was transformed into the command post, Fort William (in honor of fur trader William Sublette, who helped to invent the Rendezvous).

“For 56 years successive waves of trappers, traders, Native Americans, missionaries, emigrants, soldiers, miners, ranchers and homesteaders interacted and left their mark on a place that would become famous in the history of the American west - Fort Laramie.”

What started as a simple fur trade post on the Oregon Trail “evolved into the largest and best known military post on the Northern Plains” and is today the National Historic Site Fort Laramie.

It is part of Wyoming history and that of a great nation.

Tanning the hides

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