Fort Laramie National Historic Site

The frontiersmen who built this outpost in 1834 picked a spot they hoped would enable them to dominate the regional buffalo-hide trade: a valley where two rivers run together and the Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains. It was a remote place — the first permanent settlement in what would become the state of Wyoming, in fact. But as the real-estate adage goes, location was everything. It didn't take long for Fort William to outgrow its simple cottonwood palisade as it blossomed into a trade center and important station on the Oregon Trail. The Army purchased the post in 1849 and gave it a ... Read Full Story

Highlight despair, or show hope. Reporters had an option when they reported on Matthew Shepard’s death. Those unfamiliar with Wyoming thought Laramie’s landscape was the most barren they’d ever seen, and fitting for a crime like the one committed. When they went outside of town — to the fence where Matthew Shepard was tied and left to die — some pointed their cameras farther outward toward the prairie to highlight the desolation. Others directed their lenses in the opposite direction, showing the lights from Laramie and a scene less bleak. “I guess it depended on how you wanted it to look,” Clara Tuma said. ... Read Full Story

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