Platte County Historical Background

 
 Bicentennial Commission chose a medal, which will be applied to Platte County. It was designed
form of a wheel, with mountains suggesting the Mountain Region; a covered wagon, the period
of ration and settlement; a cowboy, the cattle and an engine, the railroad. In the center is emblematic 
of the courageous spirit of the pedal is lacking in one important respect. There to signify that the white 
man found that there were prior inhabitants. As sure as the so also were the Indians.
Yet there is not antler in the design to indicate the first families earliest known tribes in the state 
frequented there. The true  pioneers were the Shoshones,Comanches, as Cheyennes called them
in the high country, while the the Comanches, branched out on the Plains.
as one when they occupied this region, and strengthened by their numbers.

 It is doubtful that the French-Canadian Verendryes, set foot on Wyoming soil. We do know that
he came as near as Pierre, S.D. because of a metal cross in recent years. But before they could reach
 it, they were frightened away by evidence of the camp of the Gens des Serpent who had16- 17 
villages of their enemies. The guides, people had been numbered among the victims,to go farther. The 
Gens des Serpent were the Shoshone Indians. the run of the whole area, except for the the forerunners 
of the Cheyennes who later Little is known of them besides the fact small but vicious tribe, always on 
them to be called Kite Indians. They have been called the Sun Dance Indians, probably introduced the 
sacred ceremonial was later perfected by the Arapahoes.

In early 1700's, the Comanches were replaced Kiowas in the southeastern part of Wyoming.
 in the southern part of Idaho,coming from the Canadian Plains crossed the Missouri and settled, in 
the Black Hills, which according to the Indians as far west as the Laramie Range.The
next to arrive, invited a few Sioux from Minnesota to join them. They were so
with the land that they spread the word and more followed.
 coming into this region about 1800, once land north of the Platte, but they were northwestward and 
out of the Powder River &y the Sioux, who laid claim to their hunting , the Shoshones chased them 
northwardfrom the Big Horn Valley into Montana, where they are found today.

Though the Arapahoes were the first arrivals among the three so-called Platte River tribes, (the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe), the Sioux were the most powerful and best known historically because of their aggressive spirit and overwhelming numbers.

The Platte River Indians united in pushing the Shoshones westward and in keeping them on the other 
side of the mountains. The Arapahoes believed that "Man Above", or the Great Spirit, placed the 
Rockies there as a barrier between themselves and their enemies, the Shoshones of Wyoming and the 
Utes of Colorado. The Denver area later became their heartland.

The Indians did not consider this land of ours "Wild". According to the Sioux Chief, Standing Bear, it 
was the white man who made the "wild west" wild. He once said: "We did not think of the great open 
plains, the beautiful rolling hills, the winding streams with tangled growth as wild. Only to the white 
man was nature a wilderness, and only to him was the land infested with wild animals and savage 
people. To us it was tame. Earth was bountiful, and we were surrounded with the blessings of the Great 
Mystery.

"Not until the hairy man from the east came, and with his brutal frenzy, heaped injustices upon us and 
the families we loved, was it wild to us. When the very animals of the forest began fleeing from his 
approach; then it was that for us, the 'wild west' began."

Although the land was claimed and occupied by the tribes mentioned above, the whites, with utter 
disregard for tribal rights, began to trespass in ever increasing numbers. The very first to arrive in this 
locality was Robert Stuart, who, coming eastward from Astoria, Oregon in 1812, discovered the natural 
roadway along the Platte. This was later to become the Oregon Trail.

Stuart and his small party of Astorians built the first building in Wyoming, their "Chateau of 
Indolence," from which they were frightened by the Arapahoes during the dead of winter. They came 
through here, probably on the ice, for the Platte was then frozen over. They camped across from the 
mouth of Bear Creek, before entering Platte River Canyon, where they saw mountain sheep and deer.
Their next stop was at the mouth of Bitter Cottonwood (Wendover). Stuart was pleased to make note 
of an ash tree, for the narrow-leafed cottonwood provided "bitter" feed for his packhorse. Cottonwood 
Creek is shown as "Bitter Cottonwood" on early maps. The Astorians had managed to obtain a 
scrawny old nag from the Shoshones after the Crows had stolen their horses. Their next stop after 
Wendover was at the mouth of the Laramie River, where Fort William, (later Fort Laramie), was to be 
built in 1834.
 
We know that there were independent, unlisted trappers who worked this area, while the better known 
ravished the richer beaver streams in the western part of the state. There was one among the 
independents about whom we know little, and yet more place-names perpetuate his memory than that 
of any other man in the history of the state. It was Jacques La Ramie, whose name has become 
symbolic in southeastern Wyoming. Though his history is vague, his name has added romance to a fort, 
two rivers, a county, a city, and various places of business and recreation.

A fantastic story was perpetrated a few years ago to the effect that his grave had been discovered on 
the Laramie River. Letters came from all over the country. Was it actually La Ramie, whose grave was 
marked by an over-zealous citizen? It was more likely "the unknown soldier", for settlers along the 
river thought that an enlisted man from Fort Laramie was buried in the unmarked grave.

The story of the trapper is so indefinite that we are not even sure where, when, how, or by whom he 
was killed. The Arapahoes admittedly found a body under a beaver dam. Knowing the Arapahoes as 
we do, we are sure that if they did, they did not bury it. They were not friendly enough to the whites to 
administer last rites to an unwelcome intruder.

During the Fur Trade Period (1822-1840), there was a saying that "all trails led to the Siskadee" 
(Prairie Hen)—that is. Green River. Some of those trails came through Southeastern Wyoming, though 
no rendezvous was ever held east of the Rockies. There were sixteen in all. eight—or half—of them on 
Green River, three on Wind, one on Sweetwater, the others in Utah and Idaho, all in the peaceful 
Shoshone country.

Little penetration was made in the area controlled by the Platte River Indians, except for the main trail 
which followed the Platte. This was the artery or lifeline between Green River and St. Louis, and it was 
traveled by the big name traders and trappers who at one time or another came through.

In Ashley's expeditions there were such prominent men as Provot, Bridger, Fitzpatrick, Sublette, and 
Jedediah Smith. Hiram Scott, one of Ashley's employees, is of special interest to us. He was taken ill 
when he and his companions were going down the Platte on a raft. They were so sure that he was past 
recovery that they deserted him and left him to die. The next year they returned and found his bones at 
Scottsbluff, 60 miles from where they had left him. They were convinced that he had crawled the 
entire distance.
There was a shift from the rendezvous system to the established trading post in the mid '30's, with the 
founding of Fort William at the mouth of the Laramie River on the Platte. Bent's Fort, its rival on the 
Arkansas, was built about the same time, and the two forts are credited with causing a division in both 
the Arapahoes and Cheyennes, thenorthern bands preferring Fort William, and the southern preferring Bent's Fort.

After the American Fur Company had built Fort William, it had organized and expanded the fur trade - 
mostly buffalo robes - in this sector. Then it had sent Gilpin and Sybille to the Black Hills to induce the 
Sioux to come to the fort to trade. Bull Bear had responded, 100 lodges strong. The country was soon 
overrun by the Sioux, and they began showing signs of hostility toward the whites.

In the mid '30's, we find the first missionaries, coming westward with the fur company employees. 
There were Jason and Daniel Lee, who established missions in Oregon; and Marcus Whitman with 
Samuel Parker, who preached the first sermon in Wyoming. Then a year later, Whitman and H. H. 
Spalding brought their brides over the trail. Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spalding were the first white 
women to enter Wyoming. In 1840, Pierre de Smet came through on his way to Green River to 
conduct the first mass.
Two years later, John Charles Fremont, the "Pathfinder," arrived at Fort Laramie. Instead of being 
called the Pathfinder, he should, more accurately, have been called the Pathmarker, for he charted the 
course for the emigrants who followed. The path—along the natural roadway on the Platte—had 
already been found by the Indians and traveled by trappers and traders. But Fremont performed a 
unique service by indicating the campsites, the distances between them, and the vegetation to be found 
along the

At Fort Laramie, he was warned by Jim Bridger as well as by James Bordeaux who was then in charge, 
that the Sioux were on the warpath and that they had threatened to kill any whites they encountered on 
the trail west of the fort. The Indians were so impressed by Fremont's impassioned speech, they 
allowed him to pass.

Fremont, who came to Warm Springs (near Guernsey), July 21, 1842, says, "We entered the sandy bed 
of a creek, a kind of defile, shaded by precipitous rocks, down which we wound our way for several 
hundred yards to a place where a large stream gushes with considerable noise and force out of the 
limestone rock. It is called 'the Warm Springs' (later the Emigrants' Washtub) and furnishes to the 
hitherto dry bed of the creek a considerable rivulet." The following day, he visited the Sunrise area, 
where he pronounced the scenery, with the sun shining on the red rocks, the most beautiful he had ever 
seen. After a march of 27 miles, he reached the Fer-u Cheval (Horseshoe Creek), where he found good 
grass "with a great quantity of prele", which furnished ample forage for his horses.

In 1845, General Stephen W. Kearny, with five companies of Dragoons, made an impressive show of 
might at Fort Laramie for the benefit of the Platte River Indians, especially the Arapahoes who had 
committed several murders before his arrival. He warned them,
 
Francis Parkman, who came the following year, noted that one of the Arapahoes killed two white 
men to the consternation of the whole tribe. A large Indian group came to Fort Laramie to present 
horses, but Bordeaux refused them. Frances Parkman titled his study of the Sioux "The Trail", he did not follow it farther than the trail to northern Wyoming. After exploring the region unwanted by the Sioux, he turned southward toward South Platte and on down to the Arkansas before turning to the East.
His route could scarcely be called "The Oregon Trail", though his book is a classic. He was well treated by the Indians in whose camps he waaad. but he sensed trouble ahead. He said that the "dangerous spirit on the part of the Soux had mounted. They were openly threatening the war rants, and they had actually fired upon one or two of the agents.
He stated, "A military force and military law are urgently called for in the perilous time and unless troops are speedily stationed at Fort Laramie. or elsewhere in the neighborhood, both military and other travelers will be exposed to most terrible risks."

Parkman and his party ascended a high hill, his horses "treading upon pebbles of flint, agate, and 
jasper." Gaining the top, they looked down on the wide bottoms of Laramie Creek, as he called it, 
which far below "wound like a writhing snake from side to side of the narrow interval, amid a growth 
of scattered cottonwood and ash trees."
The following day, he saw wild roses, "with their sweet perfume fraught with recollections of home;" a 
rattlesnake, "as large as a man's arm and more than lour feet long;" a gray hare, "twice as large as those 
in New England;" a curlew that "flew screaming overhead;" prairie dogs that went "yelping from the 
mouths of their burrows;" an antelope, jumping from wild-sage bushes; and a white wolf, "as large as a calf," giving a sharp yelp, then leaping into the stream and swimming across. The most amazing sight was yet to come, for "emerging from among the trees, a herdof some two hundred elk came out upon the meadow, their antlers clattering as they walked forward in a dense throng. Seeing the white men, they broke into a run, rushing across the opening and disappearing among the trees and scattered groves."

In his wanderings from his base at Fort Laramie, Parkman went westward as far as the Medicine Bow 
Mountains, the favorite campground of the Northern Arapahoes, then on to La Bonte's camp where he 
had hoped to have a chance to witness a large-scale war between the Sioux and the Shoshones. He was 
disappointed when the anticipated encounter failed to materialize. The Indians dispersed, after a 
free-for-all brought on by the white man's liquor. Parkman does not name the white trader responsible, 
but it could have been either Sybille or John Richard ("Reshaw") as both were liquor peddlers. It was 
said that Reshaw's path could be followed by dead Sioux, killed in drunken brawls.

When hunting became the urgent business of the moment, a Sioux chief caught a squirming cricket and 
asked it to point toward the direction they should go. The way in which it headed was the one selected 
for the Indians to follow on their buffalo hunt.
Parkman had an opportunity to know Bull Bear, who controlled the hunting grounds west of Fort 
Laramie, and Old Smoke, who claimed those at the Forks of the Platte. It behooved the Arapahoes and 
Cheyennes to get along with these despots, who were at odds even with each other.
Besides leaving excellent word pictures of the Indians and their way of life, Parkman tells of rubbing 
elbows with some of the well-known characters, whose names have been perpetuated in our 
landmarks. Chief among them were Sybille, Reshaw, and Bordeaux, who figured prominently in our 
local history.
Parkman did not share the high opinion Fremont seemed to have of Bordeaux, who was in charge at 
Fort Laramie. Instead of his receiving him with "great hospitality and an efficient kindness," as he did 
Fremont, he was suspicious, blustery, and lacking in valor. No amount of haranguing on the part of the 
Indians could spur him to accept the challenge of a French-Canadian, who dared him to come out and 
fight.
A year after Parkman's visit, Brigham Young came through with his party on their way to the Promised 
Land—Salt Lake. Bridger is said to have made a rash statement that he would give a thousand dollars 
to anyone who could raise a bushel of wheat, (or was it an ear of corn?) in the Salt Lake area. He 
reckoned that it was too high and the season too short. He should have known the country better than 
that, for he came to the West, as he used to say, "when Laramie Peak war nothin' but a hole in the 
ground."

The Mormons may not have made the desert bloom as soon as they anticipated, but they farmed 
diligently and successfully. Meanwhile, they got the mail contract between Fort Laramie and Salt Lake City and established a series of mail stations which also served as emigrant trading posts. The first west of the fort was at Horseshoe Creek. We are not quite sure where the building stood, but judging from a blueprint in the Church Historian's office in Salt Lake City, they planned to have pickets around 160 acres of land, in which a sizeable settlement was proposed.

Before their plans could materialize, Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston in 1857, was sent against the Saints in the so-called Mormon War. Retreating westward, they burned their stations behind them.
The blueprint further suggests that Horseshoe Creek might have changed its course at the highway 
bridge and followed a ditch the Saints used in irrigating their gardens. The original course, forming a 
perfect horseshoe, is now a ditch used to irrigate ranches on lower Horseshoe Creek.

In 1849, without the knowledge or consent of the Indians, Fort Laramie became a military post. As the 
49ers streamed through, after the discovery of gold in California, hundreds paused long enough to 
inscribe their names on Register Cliff, near Guernsey.
Several years ago the State Landmark Commission appointed a chairman in each county to select a 
committee to study and evaluate local landmarks. I, chairman for Platte County, represented the north 
end of the county; Russell Staats, the south; Joe Whitmore, the center and west; and Chet Frederick, 
the east — that is, the Guernsey area. After we had presented our arguments for the historic sites in 
our particular areas, we voted to see where the first marker in Platte County should be placed. We 
decided unanimously that it should be at Guernsey, and it was subsequently placed in the park. 
Horseshoe Crossing (at Sibley Peak) was to have been the second, but no sign could be placed because 
the highway had not been completed at that point. By the time it had, funds were no longer available.
When the Highway Department resumed its work, which had stopped at Sibley Peak, I discovered a 
red flag on top of the peak one morning as I was going to Glendo. It meant only one thing— that the 
department planned to eliminate the landmark. I phoned L. C. Bishop, then State Engineer, and urged 
him to use his influence to prevent it. He did, in a measure, but he could not prevent its being shaved 
off on one side, thus spoiling the image of a Sibley—a flat-topped tent designed by an officer named 
Sibley during the Civil War. A Sibley stove stood in the center, and the soldiers slept like spokes in a 
wheel, with their feet toward the fire.

Sibley Peak, which resembled the tent in shape, was not only a well known landmark along the trail, 
but it was also a lookout post for the old Overland Stage and Telegraph Station at Horseshoe Creek. It 
was there in 1868, that the white men discovered a coup stick, indicating the presence of hostiles.

This marked the beginning of the three-day Battle of Horseshoe Creek, in which Crazy Horse and his 
60 Minneconjou warriors succeeded in destroying the old station and causing the white men at 
Mouseau's road ranch at Twin Springs to fire their own place to keep it from falling into the hands of 
the Indians. Their valuables were cached beneath, and the burning debris covered them.

The migrations to California were still at their peak when the Great Treaty Council was held, in 1851. 
It was in September, and the forage had been depleted by the emigrants. Another site, at the mouth of 
Horse Creek (Nebraska), was selected before the council began. The Horse Creek Council, as it was 
called to distinguish it from later councils held at Fort Laramie, is of special interest to us because it 
was recognized by treaty that the land, now including Platte County, belonged to the Platte River 
Indians—the Sioux in the northeastern corner, on the other side of the river, and the Arapahoes and 
Cheyennes, the rest of the county.

The Arapahoe and Cheyenne reservation was roughly "between the rivers"—the Platte and the 
Arkansas— which was too good to be true for the Indains. In the 1850's there were only about 6,500 
Sioux, 1,600 Arapahoes, and 1,400 Cheyennes. This is an estimate, not a head count. All early 
statistics were rough guesses because the chiefs, who accepted annuities for their people, did not 
permit a head count.

After the Mormon Station was destroyed at Horseshoe, the Overland Stage Company, previously 
mentioned, was established at Horseshoe Crossing, on the present Lancaster place. Russell, Majors, 
and Waddell improved communications, but there was a need for speedier service to the West Coast.
 
In 1860, the Pony Express was launched. It found that it could connect St. Joseph, Missouri with the 
West Coast in ten and a half days by traveling in relays, day and night. It lasted 18 months, long 
enough for the Overland Telegraph Line to be completed. Mr. Bishop marked a stub of an Overland 
Telegraph post on our ranch near Glendo, and from time to time we would pick up fragments of the old 
line—the "singing wires," as the Indians called them.

The Fort Wise (Fort Lyon, Colorado) Treaty of 1861 was designed first to abrogate the Treaty of 1851 
and force the relinquishment of the area "between the rivers." Second, it tried to force the Arapahoes 
and Cheyennes to occupy a reservation at Sand Creek, Colorado. There wasn't a buffalo within a 
hundred miles of the place, and the Indians had neither the knowledge or equipment to farm.
Prior to this the Arapahoes and Cheyennes had been recognized as having two geographical divisions: 
the Northern, under the direction of the Platte River Agency, and the Southern, under the jurisdiction 
of the Upper Arkansas Agency. Now the plan was to herd the
 
Northern and Southern, Indian where they were supposed to
never recognized the treaty, though four Arapahoes finally signed.

1862, of the Overland Trail and went through here. It then swooped down into Oarado to follow an Old Cherokee Trail. The trail, was known as the Overland Stage Route, avoided the but it did not reckon 
with the Northern A c^noaa through whose territory it passed.

Medicine Bow was favored by the Northern Arapahoes, who trailed back and forth to Fort Laramie across the Wheatland Flats. There are still fragments of two of their trails—one in Halleck Canyon, turning left midway up, and the other is on Upper Cottonwood. The former is marked with piles of rock, like sheepherder's monuments, and the latter is still cleared and narrow, the width necessary for a travois.

Gold became the curse of the Indian. First there was the California Gold Rush, then the Montana, the 
Colorado, and lastly the Black Hills, which indirectly contributed toward the Indian wars of 1876. In 
Colorado, the Arapahoes found their own use for gold. They discovered that the shiny substance made 
excellent bullets. But the avarice of the white man spelled the destruction of the Indian and his way of 
life. There was no stopping the white man once he heard the cry, "Gold!"

While the Overland Stage Station at Horseshoe was being operated, its manager was the "notorious" Alf Slade, also known as Jack. The adjective was so appropriate it stuck. According to Mark Twain, he had killed more than 20 people besides carrying the ears of Jules Reni around in his pocket. Twain, on his visit to Horseshoe, stood in awe of him. So did Slade's wife, for whom he named Virginia Dale, 
Colorado. But when he was away, she encouraged the Overland employees to burn out E. W. 
Whitcomb, who also had a store on Horseshoe Creek. They succeeded in her design, but they were so 
carried away that they would also have burned the station had she not grabbed a gun and threatened to 
shoot the first to make a move. Slade was later hanged by vigilantes in Montana.

 When gold was discovered in Montana, the white man needed a shortcut to the goldfields. Bridger and 
Bozeman had a contest to see whose trail was the more practical. Bozeman won, though it was not 
taken into consideration that his trail went through the dangerous Powder River Country, the hunting 
grounds of the mighty Sioux. It branched from the old Oregon Trail at Horseshoe Creek.
Three forts were built on the trail to protect the travelers: Phil Kearny and Reno, both in Wyoming, 
and C. F. Smith, in Montana. Two years later, the Sioux forced the closing of the road and the 
abandonment of the forts, which they gleefully burned. Fort Fetterman, a supply depot for the forts on 
the Bozeman Trail, was spared to become an unofficial sub-agency for the Arapahoes and later a 
supply center for the settlers in the vicinity.
The Arapahoes, who had proposed a reservation on Cache la Poudre (Colorado), on Upper 
Cottonwood Creek, at Fetterman, near Fort Caspar, and on the Sweetwater, were, in 1878, forced 
under military escort to go on the Shoshones' Wind River Reservation. As the agent said, Chief 
Washakie "had too great a heart to say no," but he understood that it was to be on a temporary basis. 
No settlement was made in his lifetime, but the courts settled the Shoshone suit against the government 
in their favor in 1938, and the Shoshones were finally paid for the land occupied by the Arapahoes for 
60 years. Since that time the two tribes have had joint occupancy.
According to John Hunton, the last sutler at Fort Laramie and an early-day historian in Platte County, 
there were fewer than ten inhabitants in Platte County prior to 1867. These were along the old Oregon 
Trail, in the Platte River Valley, east of Guernsey, on Little Bitter Cottonwood, at Twin Springs, and 
on Horseshoe Creek. The government opened a road and erected a telegraph line between Fort 
Laramie and Fort D. A. Russell in 1867.
During that summer, James Bordeaux built a road ranch on Chugwater Creek at the place later known 
as Bordeaux. It was also at the junction of a road branching northward to Horseshoe and on to Fort 
Fetterman, an ideal location for trade and for military protection which was provided from Fort 
Laramie.
After the Cottonwood and Horseshoe Creek stations were burned, all ranches in the area were 
abandoned for about five years. This did not include Bordeaux, or Hunton's as it was later called, 
which eventually became a part of John Hunton's LD ranch holdings. Though the buildings were never 
molested, James Hunton, the youngest of the three Hunton brothers, was killed by Indians in 1876.
Two years before Wyoming became a territory, it had two unofficial counties—Carter (the west half) 
and
 
Laramie (the east). When the territory was created in 1869, there were then five counties extending 
the full length from north to south. They were Uinta, Sweetwater, Carbon, Albany and Laramie. 
Wyoming became a state in 1890. There is one other date of special interest to us—1911, when 
Goshen and Platte were carved from the northern part of what was then Laramie County.
Chugwater was an important stop on the Deadwood Trail (1876-87). Hi Kelly, who operated the 
Chugwater Station, later built a ranch house to the north a few miles. There in a family cemetery lie the 
remains of relatives of his Sioux wife.
The next important stops on the Fetterman Trail were Billy Bacon's (the Ralston place), Uva; Tobe 
Miller's (the Coleman place), Cottonwood; then the St. Dennis Road Ranch (the Christianson place), 
on upper Horseshoe Creek. Bob Walker, the first settler on Horseshoe, was burned out by Indians at 
his original site, the Dave Gordon ranch, so he moved to lower Horseshoe, where he built on a clearing 
so the Indians could not surprise him. His house, T-shaped, served as our bunkhouse, then as a granary 
after we bought his ranch in 1935. The old Bellewood School House was butted against it to form the 
T. The school house had been moved from the Bellewood Stage Stop, where a station was operated by 
Bridget McDermott at Horseshoe, prior to the arrival of the railroad.

The great cattle industry of Wyoming, which reached its peak in the 1880's, got its start on Chugwater 
and Big Laramie native meadows. The Swan Land and Cattle Company empire centered at Chugwater. 
Sheep, coming into Wyoming from Oregon and California, were raised extensively in the western and 
northern part of the state before they reached industry proportions in our area. Cattle men who resisted 
sheep most bitterly gradually discovered that they were profitable. Some of the larger companies, such 
as the Swan, actually turned to sheep raising, causing Wyoming to be second only to Texas in wool 
production.
In an arid climate such as ours, where water is so important, the early settlements were along the 
creeks. Each stream is a story, which should be compiled while records and pictures are still available. 
Time takes its toll.

The Mormons are credited with some of the earliest irrigation attempts in Wyoming. But the dream of 
irrigating a vast area, such as the Wheatland Flats, became a reality only through the efforts of the 
Wyoming Development Company, which is a story in itself. It was the most ambitious irrigation project 
ever tried in the state. With it, Wheatland, the county seat of Platte County, came into being. by Virginia Cole Trenholm (1972)
 
 
Most of the remnants of the town of Grange are found in the memories of those who once lived 
there. Four crosses on a hillside, along which the Oregon Trail once wound, cast early morning 
shadows across the spot where people, horses, wagons, railroad cars and iron ore mingled. Bright red 
color from the ore still marks the place on the rail line where freighters hauled the mineral from mines 
at Hartville and loaded it onto cars heading south.

During the 1860's the location near Badger was selected by the short-lived Pony Express for a stop. It 
was then called Cottonwood. From the 1890's and a few years beyond the turn of the century the town 
thrived from the iron ore traffic.Around 1884 Henry DeGering came to the area. Anadvertisement in the Feb.  8,  1895 edition of the Wheatland World newspaper listed DeGering's store as
having "full line groceries, hardware, clothing, and a good stock of pills."

Also important to the town's development was the Badger House, a hotel built and operated by J. J. 
Haupoff. The four graves on the hillside carry this surname. The accommodations of the hotel were 
also publicized.

On July 23, 1890 the advertisement read "Badger House, located on the Cheyenne and Northern one 
and one-half miles south of Wendover Stage Station. All connections to Douglas and north made here. 
Good accommodations for the traveling public."Mary Haupoff became the first postmaster for Badger on March 20, 1890. The town acquired its name about that time when the post office was given the
 name of the U. S. Assistant  Postmaster General, George Badger, thus the town became Badger.
Joseph Grainger became the last postmaster on April 7, 1899. Louie Ryan was the last mail carrier to 
pick up and deliver mail between a point at old Fort Laramie and Badger.

When the railroad line was built nearer to the mines in Hartville, the livelihood of the town of Badger 
ceased. People such as Ed Ryan, who traces his ancestors in the vicinity of Badger since about 1857, 
Edith Bookout who recalls, at 90, living in a section house near the railroad tracks, and Stella Rizor 
who was born in the town, all cherish the memories of a time and place that used to be.
A crossroad makes an X where a town once existed.The railroad tracks still carry boxcars along the sameline, but no stops are made at Badger. Off to the sideof the road obscure signs remind travelers this was where Pony Express riders stopped and wagon trains passed on the way to Oregon.
It's a lonely place on a hot, summer afternoon under a merciless sun in a clear, blue sky. It's an 
unblemished spot on a silent, cold and snowy winter morning. Yet it's visited often through the 
mind-travels of those who remember. They leave their footprints on history's soil.

April of 1917 saw an influx of homesteaders on Bettelyoun Flats renamed forBadger, Wyoming, 1913. Badger House, a hotel built and operated by J. J. Haupoff, was a one story structure located south of the railroad tracks. Badger was approximately 25 miles northeast of 
Wheatland.
 

A school house was built for the six Moses cousins in1917. The big problem was finding a place for the teacher to live. All the houses were small with just enough room for the family. Many of the women
sent their children back to their previous homes for the year.

Laura and Alice Moses finished the first school year in the house where the teacher was living. One 
morning they came to school to find a horse in the cave. A cave was a storage place in the ground 
covered with poles and dirt. It was pantry, refrigerator, and root cellar, all m one. In the summer it kept 
butter, milk, and salted meats cool. The cave door was a blanket covered with a tarp A large band of 
wild horses ran loose on the range as there were no fences. The horses ran by into the pit and one fell 
in. The Moses girls went home to find their dad to take the horse out. What damage it h
ad done!
The Moses school house was used for four years, then the pupils were bussed to Guernsey. Clara 
Moses reports that it was the first school in Platte County. Students bussed to town.
After the building was no longer used for school, the neighborhood used it for Saturday night dances. 
There was another school house several miles west. When children were bussed into Guernsey, the two
buildings were moved together to make a sizeable community hall. Dances were only one of the many
events it was used for. The ladies organized a 4-H clubs and used the building for meetings, the county agent and hot demonstration agents came to give demonstration.

Many of the original homesteaders moved away due to dry weather, poor health or finances. Many found that what they thought was free land was far more expensive after living on it the three years to prove it. Now in the 1980's the Bettelyoun Flats country again owned by ranchers who live either on the Platte or the Laramie, see picture
(source: Heritagebook out of print)

WELCOME TO PLATTE COUNTY WY.

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JO ANN