The Fort Laramie National Historic Site is more than just a collection of old buildings and military memorabilia.
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FORT LARAMIE – The Fort Laramie National Historic Site is more than just a collection of old buildings and military memorabilia.
From the earliest indigenous people to the fur traders to the great migrations of the Oregon and Mormon Trails as the country expanded west, the park offers a glimpse into the wide and varied cultures that made America.
And this marks a departure from the original focus of the park on its history as a major military outpost, among the earliest in the state, says park superintendent Tom Baker. From its establishment as a National Historic Site in 1938 through last year, the centennial of the National Park Service, the focus of the park has been almost exclusively on its military history, he said.
“We want to tell the much deeper context of the site,” Baker said. “We want to bring more flavor of that
broader context.”
Fort Laramie served as an active military post from 1849 to about 1890. That’s just a small segment of the stories of the region and the now-833 acre park is the living repository of those voices.
National Park Week
The extended week of April 15 to April 23 marks National Park Week 2017, the “official” opening week for National Park Service units across the country. There aren’t any special programs planned for the week at Fort Laramie, said Eric Valencia, chief of interpretation and visitor services. His staff of NPS rangers and volunteers is, instead, planning for the
entire season.
The first big observance will honor veterans on Memorial Day, May 29. The site will also host a Night Sky Party on June 24 as well as the annual Independence Day Celebration on July 4.
Throughout the summer, specific portions of the fort’s history will be featured, beginning with the impacts of the fur trade in June. Native American history and culture in the region will be highlighted in July and August will focus on the Immigrant Trails.
‘Silence is deafening . . .’
The central attractions at the Fort Laramie National Historic site park are the buildings, a mix of foundation outlines, partial ruins and restored buildings. Stocking the intact and restored buildings with period-correct accoutrements has been a multi-
decade effort.
Most of the historic furniture and other items were gathered beginning as far back as the 1960s, when the NPS as a whole made those acquisitions a priority. Most of the larger pieces are reproductions, carefully manufactured decades ago to fit the years they represent.
Strolling around Fort Laramie can be a solemn experience, one not even Valencia, who’s at the park every day, is immune to. When he gets a chance to get away from his office and his many duties, he hikes up to the old Non-Commissioned Officer’s Quarters, a smaller barracks where senior NCOs would have lived while stationed at the fort.
Just a handful of standing stone and mortar walls today, the NCO Quarters is one of the first structures visitors see in the distance as they look south while driving on Hwy. 160, the main access road from the town of Fort Laramie. It sits on a bluff, the highest point in the modern-day park grounds, commanding a wide vista of the main barracks, mess halls, offices and other structures below.
“It’s just standing walls now,” he said. “But there’s still a sense of occupation, of activity, that’s very strong for me there.
“I can imagine what the fort looked like,” Valencia said. “I tell people the silence is deafening
there sometimes.”