Oregon Trail

A few miles upriver from this shaft, near the Grattan ground, stood Fort Bernard, opened in 1845 on Sarpy's Point by Pratte and Cabanné after they gave up Fort Platte. In the spring of 1846 it undersold the American Fur Company's Fort John by thirty to forty percent, and Francis Parkman and the Donner Party both stopped there that year. Fire destroyed it within two years. In 1849 Joseph Bissonette, James Bordeaux and Charles Primeau built a new post at or near the site, and Bordeaux was trading there in 1854.

What the plaque says

Oregon Trail Marked by the State of Wyoming 1914

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Laramie National Historic Site — 13 mi
  Old Bedlam, the officers' quarters of 1849, survived the auction that scattered the rest of the post; an 1875 Army bridge still crosses the river.
• Register Cliff State Historic Site — 21 mi
  The first camp out of Fort Laramie, where the oldest date on the rock reads 1829 and three emigrants never left.
• Oregon Trail Ruts State Historic Site — 23 mi
  The clearest wagon ruts on the trail, worn by iron tires and cut deeper by travelers who hacked at the ledge to get their wagons over.

More markers nearby

• To All Pioneers — 2.2 mi
• Old Texas Trail — 2.2 mi
• The Grattan Fight — 3.4 mi
• Oregon Trail — 3.5 mi