Fort William and the Fur Trade

Fort William and the Fur Trade. Fort Laramie National Historic Site. , In 1834, Robert Campbell and William Sublette established the first fort at the confluence of the North Platte and Laramie Rivers. Christened Fort William, the post was rectangular, measuring only 100 by 80 feet. Hewn cottonwood logs 15 feet high formed the palisade. At diagonal corners were log blockhouses. A third blockhouse with a cannon mounted in it was located over the front gate. Against the inside of the stockade were a series of cabins, workshops, and storehouses whose flat roofs reached to within three feet of the top of the fort’s wall., The “beaver trade” was already in decline at the time of the post’s founding. Campbell and Sublette recognized that the future of the fur trade lay not in trapping beaver but in trading with Native Americans for buffalo robes. Each spring, caravans arrived with trade goods at the fort. In the fall, tons of buffalo hides and other furs were shipped east., Fort William’s exact location is not known. Certainly, it was within a mile of this site and perhaps even occupying the same ground that you are standing on. Efforts to find what remains of Fort William continue. , The Trapper. In the early part of the 19th century, a colorful, eccentric group of bold adventurers emerged on the American frontier. This was the time of the legendary “mountain man,” an adventurer, explorer, and part-time diplomat. Their heyday would last less than 30 years, yet these rugged individualists would leave a lasting mark on the history of the west., Trappers lived hard lives, spending months wading in cold mountain streams trapping beaver and other fur-bearing mammals. Beginning in 1825 and continuing for the next 16 years trappers met at an annual “rendezvous” to exchange their year’s catch of furs for supplies and trade goods and celebrate a successful trapping season., The river below, once abundant with beaver, was named for French-Canadian trapper Jacques LaRamee. Reportedly killed in the early 1820s on the stream that now bears his name, LaRamee remains an enigma. Little else is known about the man who has no less than seven geographic features in Wyoming named after him.