How To Use This Site




How To Use This Site


This blog was updated on a daily basis for about two years, with those daily entries ceasing on December 31, 2013. The blog is still active, however, and we hope that people stopping in, who find something lacking, will add to the daily entries.

The blog still receives new posts as well, but now it receives them on items of Wyoming history. That has always been a feature of the blog, but Wyoming's history is rich and there are many items that are not fully covered here, if covered at all. Over time, we hope to remedy that.

You can obtain an entire month's listings by hitting on the appropriate month below, or an individual day by hitting on that calendar date.
Use 2013 for the search date, as that's the day regular dates were established and fixed.

Alternatively, the months are listed immediately below, with the individual days appearing backwards (oldest first).

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Showing posts with label Ft. Halleck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ft. Halleck. Show all posts

Sunday, August 2, 2020

Ft. Halleck, sort of. Near Elk Mountain Wyoming

Where Ft. Halleck was, from a great distance.

This set of photographs attempts to record something from a very great distance, and with the improper lenses.   I really should have known better, quite frankly, and forgot to bring the lense that would have been ideal.  None the less, looking straight up the center of this photograph, you'll see where Ft. Halleck once was.


The post was located at the base of Elk Mountain on the Overland Trail, that "shortcut" alternative to the Oregon Trail that shaved miles, at the expense of convenience and risk.  Ft. Halleck was built in 1862 to reduce the risk.  Whomever located the post must have done so in the summer, as placing a post on this location would seem, almost by definition, to express a degree of ignorance as to what the winters here are like.

 The area to the northeast of where Ft. Halleck once was.

The fort was only occupied until 1866, although it was a major post during that time.  Ft. Sanders, outside the present city of Laramie, made the unnecessary and to add to that, Sanders was in a more livable 


Of course, by that time the Union Pacific was also progressing through the area, and that would soon render the Overland Trail obsolete.  While not on an identical path the Overland Trail and the Union Pacific approximated each others routes and, very shortly, troops would be able to travel by rail.


As that occured, it would also be the case that guarding the railroad would become a more important function for the Army, and forts soon came to be placed on it.

Elk Mountain

And, therefore, Ft. Halleck was abandoned.











Sunday, April 28, 2013

April 28

1868 Negotiations at Ft. Laramie commence with the goal of ending Red Cloud's War.

1903   Governor De Forest Richards died in office. Fennimore Chatterton, the Secretary of State, became governor.

1926  Caroline Lockhart sued for libel.  Attribution:  Wyoming State Historical Society.

1944  USS Crook County, LST-611, named after Crook counties Wyoming and Oregon, launched. She was a landing ship, tank.

1958  Minor, but perceptible, earthquakes happened in Yellowstone National Park. Attribution:  On This Day.

1960  Tom Browning, former pitcher for the Kansas City Royals and the Cincinnati Reds, born in Casper.

1970  Fort Reno added to the National Registry of Historic Places.

1970  Bridger Pass added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1970  Ft. Bonneville added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1970  The site of a Mass celebrated by Father Pierre DeSmet in Sublette County added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1970  Fort Halleck added to the National Register of Historic Places.

1970  Sand Creek Massacre Site, in Colorado, added to the National Register of Historic Places.