Casper & the Oregon Trail
Fort Laramie and the cow that started a generation of war, the ruts worn into Guernsey's sandstone, the Great Register of the Desert, and the lieutenant Casper misspells.
The North Platte country was Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho ground long before the fur post of 1834 near the mouth of the Laramie River, which the Army bought in 1849 as Fort Laramie to guard the emigrant road. In August 1854 a Lakota man killed a cow that had strayed from a passing emigrant train. The Brulé leader Conquering Bear offered horses in payment, the owner refused, and on August 19 Lieutenant John Grattan marched into the Lakota camp with about thirty men and two cannon to make an arrest. Grattan and his entire command were killed and Conquering Bear died of his wounds, and the fight is counted the opening of a generation of war on the plains. The treaty that ended Red Cloud's War was signed at Fort Laramie in 1868.
West of the fort, marshy ground along the river pushed the wagons up over a ridge of soft sandstone south of present-day Guernsey, and wheels and hooves cut ruts into it two to six feet deep; a couple of miles away, emigrants carved their names, dates and hometowns into Register Cliff. Independence Rock, a granite dome on the Sweetwater, was the trail's best-known landmark. Trains tried to reach it by the Fourth of July to be sure of clearing the mountains before snow, and by 1841 so many names had been carved, painted or daubed on it in buffalo grease that the missionary Pierre-Jean De Smet called it the Great Register of the Desert.
In July 1865, eight months after the Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado, Lakota and Cheyenne warriors gathered against the post guarding the trail's bridge over the North Platte. On July 26 they cut off a detachment under Lieutenant Caspar Collins, who was killed with four of his men, then destroyed an Army wagon train on its way in, killing twenty more soldiers. In November the Army renamed the post Fort Casper, misspelling his first name, and the town that grew up beside it kept the error. The fort, rebuilt in the 1930s, is spelled Fort Caspar.
What to See in Casper & the Oregon Trail
6 places across the region, grouped by what they are.
Historic Sites
Scenic Drives through Casper & the Oregon Trail
Stories from Casper & the Oregon Trail
Casper & the Oregon Trail rewards the unhurried. Pick a base, fan out, and let the country between the headline stops surprise you.
← Explore more of Open Road Guide