John (Portugee) Phillips

The plate gives Phillips the ride alone, and he did not make it alone. Daniel Dixon left Fort Phil Kearny the same night with a copy of Colonel Carrington's dispatch, and each man was paid $300. They reached Fort Reno together on December 23, and at Horseshoe Station on Christmas Day the news went by telegraph to Omaha. Dixon stopped there; Phillips rode the last forty miles alone into a full-dress ball at Fort Laramie that night. The country the plate calls infested was Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho country under Red Cloud.

What the plaque says

In honor of John (Portugee) Phillips who Dec. 22-24, 1866, rode 236 miles in sub-zero weather through Indian infested country to Fort Laramie to summon aid for the garrison of Fort Phil Kearny beleaguered by Indians following the Fetterman Massacre. Erected by The Historical Landmark Commission of Wyoming 1936 Fort Phil Kearny 300 yards

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site — 0.3 mi
  A Bozeman Trail fort whose wood trains were attacked for two years, and the wagon-box corral where its woodcutters held out behind new breech-loaders in 1867.
• Occidental Hotel — 14 mi
  Buffalo's 1880 grand hotel, its 1908 saloon ceiling still pocked with bullet holes, won once in a poker game and nearly torn down in the 1990s.
• Trail End State Historic Site — 20 mi
  A Texas trail hand's Flemish Revival mansion, five years in the building, that he barely lived in once Wyoming sent him to the governor's office and the Senate.
• Sheridan Inn — 20 mi
  A hunting-lodge hotel with sixty-nine gables, where Buffalo Bill is said to have auditioned Wild West acts from the porch.

More markers nearby

• Fetterman Monument — 2.6 mi
• The Fetterman Fight (panel) — 2.6 mi
• With the Arrival Of... (Fetterman) — 2.6 mi
• The Interpretive Trail (Fetterman) — 2.6 mi