The Fort Sanders Guardhouse is the single substantially intact building
remaining on the site of this military reservation erected in 1866 to
protect and defend encroaching modern civilization in the Rocky Mountain
West.
Initially, Fort Sanders troops aided emigrants traveling the Lodgepole
Trail. Fort Sanders troops also protected the Denver and Salt Lake stage
line. In the post’s sixteen-year existence its troops were involved
in twenty major skirmishes with Indians, although no battles occurred
on fort grounds. Since men garrisoned at Fort Sanders participated in
General Custer’s military campaign of 1876, it seems likely some
probably fell at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
In 1867 the Union
Pacific Railroad came onto the high plains of southern Wyoming. Surveyors
and engineers were particularly vulnerable to Indian attack, and thus
needed the aid of Fort Sanders troops.
The establishment of Laramie
City in the spring of 1868, situated about three miles north of the
Fort Sanders post, prompted the construction of the guardhouse. As Laramie’s
economy boomed desertion rates at Fort Sanders soared. Likewise, drunkenness
and boisterousness were endemic among the troops stationed at Fort Sanders,
and when the guardhouse was completed early in 1869 it was usually full.
After completion of Fort D.A. Russell at Cheyenne late in 1868, the
importance of Fort Sanders began to wane.
The War Department maintained
Fort Sanders until 1882, when the property and buildings were sold and
the post vacated. Communities and Related Links
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