Deer Creek Station, Glenrock Wyoming.

In the last couple of days I've put up some photos of Frontier Era Army posts in the state which were taken years ago. All of those were originally posted elsewhere, but a change in how Photobucket operated made them difficult to view, and I was left wondering why I hadn't blogged those photos.  I know the reason why, actually.  It used to be hard to upload lots of photos onto Blogger.  That's changed.

Anyhow, this photograph is new.  This is the former location of Deer Creek Station.

The sign itself isn't placed on the exact location, actually.  It's near it, more or less, but really a couple of miles away.  I'd guess it may be 1 mile to 2 miles from the original post.  Anyhow, the sign does a good job of giving the history of the post, which started off as a civilian trading post in 1857 and which was occupied during the Civil War by state troops sent to police the frontier.  This post, like a collection of others, was burned by the Indians following the abandonment of the fort in 1866.

In recognition of 150 years since . . .

the following, which occurred on this day in 1869;

1869  Territorial Governor John Campbell signed a bill giving full suffrage and public rights to women in Wyoming.  This was the first law passed in the US explicitly granting to women the franchise.  The bill provided that:  ""Every woman of the age of eighteen years residing in this territory, may, at every election cast her vote; and her right to the elective franchise and to hold office under the election laws of the territory shall be the same of electors."  Gov. Campbell's comment, in signing the bill into law, was:  "I have the honor to inform the Council that I have approved 'An act to grant to the Women of Wyoming Territory the right of Suffrage and to hold office.'" 

the Casper Star Tribune has been running features in a separate edition on notable Wyoming Wyoming.

Additionally, the University of Wyoming has been giving a series of seminars of women's suffrage this semester as well.

A Monument To The Union Pacific No. 1 Mine.

A monument, in Rock Springs, Wyoming, to the first mine in that district.

The mine was, not too surprisingly, a Union Pacific mine. Started in 1868, the coal fueled the transcontinental railroad.

Richard's (Reshaw's) Bridge, Evansville Wyoming.

Reshaw's Bridge, or more correctly Richard's Bridge, was a frontier North Platte River crossing only a few miles downstream from Platte Bridge and like it, it was guarded by a contingent of soldiers.  As noted in the plaque below, it ultimately closed in favor of the slightly newer Guinard's Bridge, which Richard bought, which ultimately came to be referred to as Platte Bridge. 

In 1866, after the bridge had been abandoned, it was dismantled by the soldiers stationed at Platte Bridge Station.

While Platte Bridge Station is remembered for the battle that occurred there, Reshaw's Bridge saw its fair share of action as well. 

Indeed, as we've discussed previously on one of our companion blogs, which we'll link in here below, bodies exhumed at the post when Evansville's water treatment facility was built include what are certainly two soldiers and a pioneer woman.  Generally, the Army would reclaim bodies of troops, but my minor efforts to inform the Army of this failed.

From our companion blog, Some Gave All:

Richard's Bridge Cemetary Mausoleum, Evansville Wyoming

This mausoleum was built when at least part of the cemetery of the military post at Richards Bridge was located at the time Evansville, Wyoming built a water plant near the river. The former location of the Frontier Era bridge across the North Platte had not been precisely known up until that time. When three bodies, believed to be the bodies of two soldiers and one woman, were disinterred they were reburied here, on the grounds of the Evansville grade school. The school grounds were the only nearby public land at the time.

This creates a very odd situation in a variety of ways and the mausoleum is not well maintained. While worse fates could exists than spending eternity near a grade school, it is generally the case that the Army has recovered the lost remains of Frontier Era soldiers when they were located, and it would seem that moving these victims of Frontier conditions would be a positive thing to do.

Holscher's Hub: The Register of the Desert. Independence Rock

Holscher's Hub: The Register of the Desert. Independence Rock

Lex Anteinternet: The plank in our own eye. Considering the memoria...

Lex Anteinternet: The plank in our own eye. Considering the memoria...: Why do you observe the splinter in your brother's eye and never notice the great log in your own?  And how dare you say to your broth...

Blog Mirror: MeredithinWyoming; August 2, 1867 The Wagon Box Fight on the Bozeman Trail.

August 2, 1867 The Wagon Box Fight on the Bozeman Trail

Some Gave All: Sweetwater Station, Freemont County Wyoming.

Some Gave All: Sweetwater Station, Freemont County Wyoming.:

There's a highway rest station on top of Beaver Rim at Sweetwater Station that I've stopped in a million times, but I've never photographed it before.  Probably because there's always been a lot of
people there and I felt self conscious about it.  Anyhow, the other day I went through and it was just me, so I took these photos with my Iphone.

The photos here will be left large so that the details on the signs can be read.  I didn't do a very good job of photographing them while there, but it was relatively early in the day and light conditions were not idea.

This is a converging location on the trail and a lot of different things are significant about the spot.  It's a significant Oregon Trial spot in and of itself.  It was also the location of an Army post, protecting the trail, during the 1860s.  Lt. Caspar Collins, who lost his life famously leading a mixed company at the Battle of Platte Bridge Station, was stationed at Sweetwater Station.

Some Gave All: Ft. Fred Steele, Carbon County Wyoming

Some Gave All: Ft. Fred Steele, Carbon County Wyoming:

In the past, I haven't tended to post fort entries here, but for net related technical reasons, I'm going to, even though these arguably belong on one of my other blogs.  I'll probably cross link this thread
in.

These are photographs of Ft. Fred Steele, a location that I've sometimes thought is the bleakest historical site in Wyoming.

One of the few remaining structures at Ft. Steele, the powder magazine.  It no doubt is still there as it is a stone structure.

The reason that the post was built, the Union Pacific, is still there.

Ft. Steele is what I'd regard as fitting into the Fourth Generation of Wyoming frontier forts, although I've never seen it described that way, or anyone other than me use that term.   By my way of defining them, the First Generation are those very early, pre Civil War, frontier post that very much predated the railroads, such as Ft. Laramie.  The Second Generation would be those established during the Civil War in an effort to protect the trail and telegraph system during that period during which the Regular Army was largely withdrawn from the Frontier and state units took over. The Third Generation would be those posts like Ft. Phil Kearney that were built immediately after the Civil War for the same purpose.  Contemporaneously with those were posts like Ft. Steele that were built to protect the Union Pacific Railroad.  As they were in rail contact with the rest of the United States they can't really be compared to posts like Ft. Phil Kearney, Ft. C. F. Smith or Ft. Caspar, as they were built for a different purpose and much less remote by their nature.

What the post was like, when it was active.

A number of well known Wyoming figures spent time at Ft. Saunders.

Ft. Sanders, after it was abandoned, remained a significant railhead and therefore the area became the center of a huge sheep industry. Quite a few markers at the post commemorate the ranching history of the area, rather than the military history.

One of the current denizens of the post.

Suttlers store, from a distance.

Union Pacific Bridge Tenders House at the post.

Current Union Pacific bridge.

Some structure from the post, but I don't know what it is.

The main part of the post's grounds.

Soldiers
from this post are most famously associated with an action against the
Utes in Utah, rather than an action in Wyoming.  This shows the high
mobility of the Frontier Army as Utah is quite a distance away, although
not so much by rail.

This
1914 vintage highway marker was on the old Lincoln Highway, which
apparently ran north of the tracks rather than considerably south of
them, like the current Interstate Highway does today.

About 88 people or so were buried at this post, however only 60 some graves were later relocated when the Army undertook to remove and consolidate frontier graves.  Logic would dictate, therefore, that some graves likely remain.

Unusual civilian headstone noting that this individual had served with a provisional Confederate unit at some point that had been raised in California.  I'm not aware of any such unit, although it must have existed.  The marker must be quite recent.