Construction of a “Mail Station” at Deer Creek (south of present-day Glenrock) began the following spring. Elder John Taylor reported progress of construction, July 24, 1857: Fifteen acres had been planted to crops, a corral had been completed “… 150 feet square made of logs 12-1/2 feet long with their ends in the ground and dovetailed together near the top, and a stockyard adjoining of the same dimensions nearly completed … the fort is 320 feet square … with a stockage enclosing 42 houses …” (not yet completed). A survey plat prepared by Thomas D. Brown for the Mormons, dated July 11, 1857, showed the “Trading Station” (Bissonette’s Trading Post) to be 3-1/2 miles to the north (on the Oregon Trail). As fate would have it, the project was never completed.

The United States government, acting on a false belief that Mormons were taking over the West, ordered federal troops to march against Utah that very summer. Upon learning of Col. Albert Johnson’s advancing army, the Mormons hastily withdrew from Deer Creek, returning to the sanctuary of Salt Lake Valley.

Twiss Indian Agency
A major influence in shaping the decision of President Buchanan was a letter written by Major Thomas S. Twiss, Indian agent for the Upper Platte District located at Ft. Laramie. It read: “On the 25th May (1857) a large Mormon colony took possession of the valley of Deer Creek, one hundred miles west of Fort Laramie, and drove away a band of Sioux Indians whom I had settle there in April …” He estimated the settlement contained “… houses sufficient for the accommodation of five hundred persons …” He summed up by saying, “I am powerless to control this matter, for the Mormons obey no laws enacted by Congress.”

No sooner had the Mormons left than Agent Twiss penned a letter to Washington, dated Nov. 7, 1857, showing his return address as: “Indian Agency of the Upper Platte, Re: Deer Creek.” It began, “I have the honor to report that I have arrived at this post on the 29th ultimo and shall remain here for the present.” And remain he did, conducting all Indian affairs business from his Deer Creek headquarters for several years thereafter, including the distribution of yearly annuities to various Indian tribes, even entering unto a treaty which would have made Deer Creek valley into an Indian Reservation had the treaty been ratified by Congress.

Lutheran Indian Mission
Sharing the Twiss Agency were several Lutheran missionaries who established an Indian Mission within its stockade, later building five structures 1-1/2 miles above the old fort. History records that these missionaries conducted the first formal Christmas ceremony (1859) in what would later become Wyoming. Their efforts enjoyed only limited success and the mission was officially closed in 1867.

Excerpted from Glenrock Historical Commission brochure.