Preliminary Cultural Landscape Report: Fort Laramie National Historic Site

Keohan, Thomas

Originally established as a private fur trading fort in 1834, Fort Laramie evolved into the largest and best known military post on the Northern Plains before its abandonment in 1890. This “grand old post” witnessed the entire sweeping saga of America’s western expansion and Indian resistance to encroachment on their territories. The Fort Laramie National Historic Site is a complex landscape exhibiting significant historic features worthy of preservation. The purpose of this report is twofold. First, it is to identify and describe important landscape features within a historical context and make recommendations to protect and preserve these features. It is recognized that many historic landscape features change over time. Changes may be naturally occurring, but in most cases are influenced by human activity. Generally, changes that have occurred during the fort’s defined period of significance are considered contributing to the historic integrity of the landscape. Other changes that have occurred more recently, may detract from the historic resource and should be minimized where possible. The exception however, would be current efforts to accurately restore missing or damaged historic features. Secondly, this report will identify those negative changers, whether actual or proposed, that threaten the historic integrity of the landscape and to make recommendations that eliminate or minimize their impact. Section II of this report describes the historical development of the landscape and the influence of nature and human activity in six distinguishing time periods: prehistory; fur trade period (1834 to 1849); early army period (1849 to 1879); late army period (1880 to 1890); homestead era (1890 to 1938); and National Park era (1938 to present). It should be noted that these six time periods have been identified by scholars and historians as specific historic periods associated with Fort Laramie. Section III is a detailed analysis and evaluation of the landscape and describes the changes and responses of the landscape to the natural and human activity occurring during the six historic time periods. The analysis and evaluation in Section III is organized within six landscape characteristics; land use and spatial organizations; vegetation; circulation; structural types; archaeological resources; and historic detail elements.

Preliminary Cultural Landscape Report: Fort Laramie National Historic Site

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