Colonel Richard I Dodge, who selected this site on the west bank of the North Platte River, named the fort for Major General Frederick Steele, 20th U.S. Infantry, a Civil War hero.

Although the fort at first resembled a tent city, Colonel Dodge’s military quartermaster quickly built the fort according to Army specifications by using local materials and labor. In fact, many of the 300 troops here at the time received extra pay for their help with this effort. Key civilians who were also employed at the post included a sawmill engineer, blacksmith, saddler and wheelwright. Like many other frontier outposts, the military relied, too, upon a licensed trader or sutler to supply fresh produce and mercantile goods for its personnel and dependents.

After the major Indian threat had passed, the War Department deactivated the post and transferred its troops to other military facilities throughout the United States. Only a guard was left to oversee this federal property.

Industry
After the fort was abandoned, a sparse population of civilians remained at what would be known only as Fort Steele. Prospering briefly as a logging center, millions of felled trees were floated down the North Platte River from the Medicine Bow and Sierra Madre Mountains to this small community where they were turned into railroad ties and fence posts. Later, a major sheep sheering plant was established to remove the animals’ wool made thick and rich by the harsh Wyoming winters. The railway that passed through the community facilitated shipment of those bales to the east where the raw goods were processed and woven into material for fashionable garments for men and women.

America’s First Transcontinental Highway
In 1912 the mighty Lincoln Highway was conceived as a transcontinental highway to parallel the original railroad that crossed this country. That dream became a reality in 1922 as the concrete ribbon was completed and linked the east and west coast. A brief economic revival for Fort Steele followed that achievement. The rerouting of the highway in 1939, plus the demise of the tie industry a year later was the village’s death knell.

Excerpted from Wyoming State Parks and Historic Sites brochure.