Restored by the Wyoming Recreation Commission in 1983, the one and one-half story, clapboard-sided structure was probably built before 1887. The replacement of steam by diesel locomotives in the mid-1900’s eliminated the necessity for a bridge tender and the house was abandoned.

Fort Fred Steele After 1886
Officially abandoned in 1886, the fort came under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior in 1887. In 1892 and 1893 most of the buildings were sold at public auction. In 1897 the land, opened to homesteading, was patented by the Union Pacific Railroad.

Primary industries in the town of Fort Steele after the turn of the century were sheep ranching and tie processing. The Lincoln Highway, the nation’s first transcontinental highway, passed through the town and boosted the economy between 1920 and 1939. When the highway was moved in 1939 most commercial activity ended. The number of residents declined rapidly and the town became practically deserted.

In 1973 the Wyoming Stage Legislature created the Fort Fred Steele State Historic Site. Although the number of structures has declined dramatically over the years what remains standing is mute testimony to the flourishing and subsequent passing of several frontiers.

Brownsville and Benton
During construction of the Union Pacific Railroad land speculators and a large contingent of undesirables kept pace with or moved ahead of the construction crews and their military escorts. Townsite speculators tried to anticipate depot locations, purchasing land, selling lots and constructing tent towns.

Before the railroad reached the North Platte crossing at Fort Fred Steele, speculators set up the town of Brownsville on the river’s east bank. Commanding Officer, Major Richard I. Dodge, issued an order July 2, 1868 proclaiming all lands within a three mile radius of Fort Fred Steele to be part of the military reservation and prohibiting civilian residence. Benton thus grew up on the west edge of the reservation. In a matter of days Brownsville’s population resided in Benton. The tent town of Benton lasted only a few months when its population moved west to Rawlins Springs.

Officers’ Quarters
The collapsed sandstone building west of the sign is all that remains of the once imposing eight room, one and one-half story Commanding Officer’s quarters. Residences for staff officers were four, wood-framed double quarters with a captain in one-half and two lieutenants in the other half. Compared to enlisted men’s barracks, the officers’ quarters were luxurious. Amenities included lath and plaster walls, kitchens with cellars and large enclosed yards.

Officers’ salaries greatly exceeded those of enlisted men. They could hire servants and support a family, activities prohibited to the enlisted man. Social activities at Fort Fred Steele included dinner parties, card games, theatrical presentations, dances and outdoor activities such as fishing, hunting, ice skating and sledding. Even with these diversions, daily military life was monotonous. Opportunities for promotion were limited and usually occurred upon the retirement or death of a superior.

Fort Steele Schoolhouse
After the fort was decommissioned and the military buildings were sold at auction, the residents of the Fort Steele community converted some of the old structures into homes and businesses or built anew on top of bare foundations. The schoolhouse was built in 1919 over the foundation remains of the fort hospital. The one-story, gable-roofed structure with clapboard siding served as a library, church, and community meeting house as well as an education center for the town.

Work and leisure time at Fort Steele did not change drastically with the closing of the fort. The trains continued to stop daily supplying the community with fresh produce and other necessary goods while carrying local timber and wool to points beyond. The North Platte River still provided the town folk with a pleasant location for their leisure activities.

Enlisted Men’s Barracks
Two stone foundations and chimneys remain of the five enlisted men’s barracks once at Fort Fred Steele. The walls were constructed of logs and boards and battens while a shingled roof protected pine floor boards. Tar paper covered interior walls. Kitchens doubled as mess and washrooms, and iron bedsteads took up most of the floor space.

Enlisted life in the frontier army could only be characterized as boring, with inadequate salaries and a monotonous diet. Most soldiers spent their days drilling and digging ditches. Social activities for enlisted men were limited and alcohol consumption prompted periodic orders from the commanding officer restricting saloon activities.

In 1892 the barracks buildings, sold at auction with other fort structures, were purchased by private citizens. Only the two central barracks remained when the first transcontinental auto road, the Lincoln Highway, passed through the town of Fort Steele in the 1920s. The road bridged the Platte River directly north of the town and passed close by the old army barracks, one of which was given a new function as a gasoline station.

The last two barracks were destroyed by fires set by vandals on New Year’s Eve, 1976.

Sheepherders’ Community
Sheep were introduced to Wyoming in the 1850s near Fort Bridger, about 180 miles west of Fort Steele. By 1880 the number had grown to over 350,000 head ranging primarily along the route of the Union Pacific Railroad, The Cosgriff Brothers owned one of the largest sheep ranching operations in Wyoming at that time, and they established herds in the Fort Steele area in 1881. After the fort was decommissioned they acquired many of its buildings and in 1903 constructed one of the largest sheep shearing plants in Wyoming. In 1905 over 800,000 pounds of wool was shipped to Boston, the single largest shipment of wool ever sent out of Wyoming.

L. E. Vivion, owner of the Leo Sheep Company, purchased most of the Cosgriff land holdings including the land at Fort Fred Steele in 1915. The house, lean-to, and shed in this area are the remains of a sheepherders’ community.

Powder Magazine
The powder magazine housed the fort’s munitions and therefore was located away from the main military complex. Ironically, it is one of the few fort structures remaining. It replaced the original magazine, a dugout constructed when the post was established in 1868.

The structure was built in 1881 from locally quarried stone and from materials fabricated at the Department of the Platte Headquarters in Omaha and shipped by rail to Fort Fred Steele. With sturdy walls on random-coursed ashlar sandstone, the powder magazine remains essentially the same as it was in 1881, although the tin roof has been replaced with shingles and internal shelving has been removed.

Few artillery pieces and only small quantities of ammunition were kept at the post. Fort Fred Steele generally had only a single mountain howitzer, and sometimes a Gatling gun on hand. Other explosive and combustible materials such as powder, fuses and signaling fireworks probably also were stored in this building.

Major General Frederick Steele 1818-1868
General Steele commanded a division of the Union Army at Vicksburg. Later he commanded all Union forces on the line of the Arkansas, exercising President Lincoln’s policy of conciliation and reconstruction. At the end of the war he served in Texas, on the Mexican border. He then was sent to Oregon and Washington as commander of the Department of the Columbia.

Shortly following his death, Fort Fred Steele was named in his honor.

Post Trader Residence
This site is the remains of the Post Trader’s residence. The photograph taken of the building later in the army’s occupation of the fort attests to the prosperity enjoyed by the Post Trader.

The Post Trader was appointed by the Secretary of War, and the position was highly prized because of its profit possibilities. In 1868 J. W. Hugus established dry goods, liquor, freighting and ferry operations, all welcomed by travelers and local residents including the fort’s soldiers. Alcohol use apparently caused the Post Commander concern as he frequently ordered Hugus to limit sales to soldiers.

Hugus, one of the area’s leading merchandisers, continued as Post Trader until 1884 when he sold his business to Fenimore Chatterton, a long-time employee. Chatterton later held the office of Wyoming Secretary of State and served as Acting Governor from 1903 to 1905.

Carbon Timber Company
Construction of the Union Pacific Railroad stimulated the growth of the timber industry in southern Wyoming. Two companies began supplying ties to the railroad in 1868, but the firm of Coe and Carter was the leading supplier to the Fort Fred Steele collection yards until 1896.

Cut and shaped in the Medicine Bow Mountains to the south, ties were floated downrivcr during spring run-off and were gathered behind a boom here. Coe and Carter also supplied timbers for coal mines at Carbon, Hanna, and Dana to the east, and lumber for buildings at Fort Fred Steele and the surrounding area. The Carbon Timber Company, successor to Coe and Carter, floated over 1.5 million timbers down the North Platte in 1909.

Directly across the North Platte River east of Fort Steele are the remains of the Carbon Timber Company tie processing facility, a privately-owned site.

Cemetery
The post cemetery served as a graveyard for soldiers, their dependents, and civilians during army occupation of Fort Fred Steele (1868-1886). Although some soldiers died during the Indian Wars of the 1860’s and 1870’s, most of the military deaths at the fort were the result of accidents and disease. Civilians and travelers who expired in the vicinity of Fort Steele also were interred in the cemetery.

Although the Fort Steele hospital provided medical services to military personnel and their dependents, the lack of refined medical techniques often resulted in death from infection and diseases like pneumonia and tuberculosis. The infant mortality rate was particularly high and 25% of the graves in the cemetery were occupied by children.

The 100’ X 140’ cemetery was enclosed by a picket fence and contained eighty irregularly spaced graves. Each grave was numbered, the number appearing on a painted wooden peg at the foot of the plot. Gravesite markings included wood headboards for the military but they proved impractical as inscriptions soon became obliterated by weathering. Although few persons of historical fame were buried in the Fort Fred Steele cemetery, an exception was Jefferson J. Standifer, who participated in many western gold rushes including the brief 1867 boom at South Pass City, Wyoming.

Not all those who perished at Fort Steele were buried in the post cemetery. Rather than surrender their loved ones to an eternity on this wind-swept riverbank, some chose to ship the deceased by rail to other final resting places. Military families occasionally requested official assistance with the shipments. Officers reported civilian requests for coffins and embalming materials, complaining that to supply them was not a military responsibility.

When the post was decommissioned in 1886, the Secretary of the Interior declared the cemetery exempt from sale or transfer to public because of the military burials. In 1892 the graves of the soldiers, their dependents and some civilians were moved to Fort McPherson National Cemetery near Maxwell, Nebraska. Civilians continued to use the cemetery after the departure of the military and the last documented burial took place in the 1920’s. The land occupied by the cemetery is still owned by the United States government.