Fort Fred Steele
Wyoming
Fort Fred Steele was born as the Union Pacific Railroad reached the North Platte River here in carbon County, Wyoming. Established in eighteen sixty-eight, and named for Civil War general Frederick Steele, the post put several hundred soldiers between the railroad crews and the Sioux and Cheyenne bands who contested the line's path through their territory. Through the eighteen seventies the fort grew into a proper garrison with barracks, a sawmill, a sutler's store, and officer's quarters, drawing cattlemen, sheepherders, and loggers into a small civilian settlement around it.
Troops from Fort Fred Steele rode to relieve the siege at Milk Creek during the Ute uprising of eighteen seventy-nine. By eighteen eighty-six the Indian Wars were over and the Army had no more use for the post. It was abandoned that year.
The ruins and a few restored structures survive today as a Wyoming state historic site.
