Wyoming Trading Posts

Adapted from Negotiating the West: A History of Wyoming Trading Posts by Greg Pierce

The first trading post in Wyoming was constructed in 1832, but Euroamerican trappers and traders reached the region decades earlier. While the Euroamerican trappers, traders and posts were new introductions to the region the activities conducted at them were not. Native Americans had engaged in long distance trade with other indigenous groups for at least 8,000 years and possibly longer. Over time the nature of the trade would change, but the exchange systems always persisted.

Wyoming’s trading posts were integrally involved in a transformative period in the American and Native American pasts. Fur trading activity conducted from these sites often served as the earliest form of contact between Native Americans and Euroamericans in the West, helping to develop economic, social, and political relationships between the two. The posts also aided in the development of the local infrastructure through the development of trails, river crossings, and communication and transportation stations that eventually allowed for emigration and the settlement of the West by the United States. The posts were involved in military actions such as the Grattan Massacre and in treaty negotiations between the United States and tribal authorities. These associations make the posts an important part of American and Native American local, regional, and national histories.

To date, at least 29 trading posts have been identified in the state of Wyoming. With the exception of three, Fort Bonneville, Bordeaux’s Rawhide Creek Post, and the Portuguese Houses, all are located on, or near, one of the trapper or emigrant trails. Aside from those that have been reconstructed or are part of larger interpretive sites, it is possible to visit the locations of many Wyoming posts with no surface remains, many of which have been commemorated by roadside markers providing locational information and a brief history.

[Editor’s Note: Special thanks to the author and to the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office for making this article available and to the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund for its ongoing support for this project. Greg Priece’s historical monograph, Negotiating the West: A History of Wyoming Trading Posts, from which this travel itinerary is adapted and excerpted, is one of many historic contexts published by the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office. These documents are meant to offer a broad background against which historic developments can be better understood as the agency works to preserve properties and places important to an understanding of Wyoming’s past. The contexts also, however, are based on sound research and are full of well-told, vivid stories. With this in mind, WyoHistory.org is collaborating with the SHPO office to bring more of this history to a wider readership. The Cultural Trust has provided the funds to make this collaboration possible. We offer our thanks to all.]

Visit Wyoming’s Trading Posts:

Fort Laramie

Fort Laramie began as a fur-trade post in 1834 near the confluence of the Laramie and North Platte rivers. Soon it changed into a post for the trade in buffalo robes, and for supplying emigrants bound west on the Oregon/California/Mormon Trail. In 1849 the post was purchased by the U.S. Army, and became an important supply, logistics and communications center for the Indian Wars campaigns of the next four decades. In recent decades the post has been carefully restored, and today is a National Historic Site.

poster advertising "PONY EXPRESS! 10 Days to San Francisco! Letters will be received at the OFFICE, 84 BROADWAY, New York, up to 4 P.M. every TUESDAY. Up to 2 1/2 P.M. every SATURDAY, which will be forwarded to connect with the PONY EXPRESS leaving ST.JOSEPH, Missouri every WEDNESDAY and SATURDAY at 11 P.M."

Ward and Guerrier’s Sand Point Post

Seth Ward and William Guerrier built Sand Point Post at Register Cliff, the first stop west of Fort Laramie, where they pioneered livestock exchange and open-range wintering that launched Wyoming’s cattle industry. It operated for sixteen years, doubling as mail and Pony Express station.

watercolor drawing of a fort and some teepees on a plain with rounded hills in the background, framed in a circle and titled "Deer Creek Station"

Bissonette’s Deer Creek Post

Fur trader Joseph Bissonette built a bustling trading post at the mouth of Deer Creek in 1857—a crossroads of commerce, diplomacy and scandal that hosted Lutheran missionaries, Pony Express riders and a wary military garrison before Indian wars reduced it to ashes in 1865.

one-story stone compound with corrals in an open area; mountains in the background

Seminoe’s Post

In 1852, Charles Lajeunesse built a trading post at Devil’s Gate, funneling all Sweetwater Valley emigrant traffic past his door. Abandoned by 1856, its ruins sheltered the stranded Martin Handcart Company that winter. Lost for a century, the site was rediscovered and rebuilt in 2001.

Stacked logs and rocks underpinning a wooden ramp with railings, set on a lawn

Richard’s Post

For twelve years, John Baptiste Richard’s toll bridge and trading post near present-day Evansville was the upper North Platte’s busiest crossing, hosting emigrants, soldiers, and the Pony Express. Known to travelers as “Reshaw’s Bridge,” it gave way to Fort Caspar in 1865.

formal portrait of heavyset Caucasian man wearing glasses and military uniform

Fort Bonneville

Built in 1832 near the Green River, Fort Bonneville was Wyoming’s first trading post, though mountain men mocked it as “Fort Nonsense.” Its real legacy was proving wagons could cross South Pass.

Fort Bridger

Established by mountain men Jim Bridger and Louis Vasquez in 1843, Fort Bridger was an important rest and re-supply spot for emigrants bound to Utah, California and Oregon. Mormons acquired the site in the mid-1850s, and burned it in 1857 as the U.S. Army approached during the bloodless Utah War. The following year the Army took over, and garrisoned the fort until 1890. Today it is a state historic site.

painting of plains with several teepees and Indigenous people in the foreground and a large wooden fort flying an American flag in the background

Fort William

Built in 1834 at the Laramie-Platte confluence, Fort William was Wyoming’s first permanent trading post, precursor to Fort John and Fort Laramie. Champagne christened its name after a dispute among its builders. Its exact location remains unknown despite decades of archaeological searching.

ink drawing of a thick-walled fort on a hill above water

Fort John

Built in 1841 to outshine its decaying predecessor Fort William, adobe Fort John became the busiest trading post on the North Platte, the “Fort Laramie” thousands of emigrants passed through. The Army bought it in 1849, launching one of the West’s great military posts.

painting of buckskin-clad fur trader placing beaded necklace over the head of an Indigenous man among a group of his fellow tribesmen in a cluster of teepees

Fort Bernard

Fort Bernard undercut Fort John’s prices by up to 40% in 1845–46, until a fire destroyed it within two years. Visited by Francis Parkman and the Donner Party, it captures a fierce, short-lived challenge to the American Fur Company’s monopoly on the North Platte.

drawing of assorted one-and two-story buildings with a tall flgpole in the center and tiny figures walking about. At the bottom are the words, "FORT LARAMIE IDH. T."

Ward and Guerrier’s Fort Laramie Post

After the Grattan Fight forced Platte River traders to Fort Laramie in 1855, Seth Ward and William Guerrier built a trading post just across the river. Ward became the fort’s sutler in 1857, anchoring one of the corridor’s most successful trading partnerships until 1863.

Engraving portrat of solemn-faced man with curly hair wearing a suit

Fort Platte

Built in 1841 to challenge the American Fur Company, Lancaster Lupton’s Fort Platte sparked a fierce three-year rivalry with Fort John. Bankrupt by 1842, it passed through four owners before being abandoned in 1845. Not even an adobe brick remains today.

watercolor drawing of an Indigenous warrior in fringed buckskin pants and boot, with a necklace of animal claws and feathers in his shoulder-length hair, holding a bow and arrows, and strapped with a quiver and shield; another figure wearing and eagle-feather headdress and buffalo robe decorated with images of figures on horseback and holding a feather-trimmed spear; and a woman wrapped in a robe and shawl holding a single feather

The Portuguese Houses

In 1834, Antonio Montero built a remote trading post for Crow trade deep in Powder River country. Isolated, harassed by Blackfeet raiders and rival trappers, and undone by a ruinous winter in 1836-37, the Portuguese Houses remain remarkably undisturbed beneath a Johnson County hayfield.

Painting of a plains landscape, with Indigenous people on foot and horses in the foreground, teepees scattered around a walled fort in the middle distance, by a body of water, and mountains on the horizon

Fort Sarpy

In 1837, Pierre Sarpy built a seasonal outpost near Fort William on the North Platte to feed the fur trade’s booming robe market. Abandoned within a year, its exact location was never recorded, and Fort Sarpy remains one of Wyoming’s most obscure trading posts.

watercolor drawing of a csstle-like fort with people on horseback and in a covered wagon approaching in the foreground

Lock and Randolph Company

In 1841, the obscure firm of Lock and Randolph built a log post near Fort Adams on the North Platte, the smallest player in a crowded market. Known mainly from a note about borrowed axes, the venture failed, followed by bankruptcy at Fort Vasquez.

Wooden bridge spanning a river, with a man dressed in a dark hat, vest, and dark pants leans on a rifle in the foreground

Fort Adams

Fort Adams was a short-lived trading post established in September 1841 near the confluence of the Laramie and North Platte rivers in present-day Goshen County, Wyoming. Built by the trading firm of Sybille, Adams, and Company and occupied for only a single season, it was one of several posts competing simultaneously for the North Platte trade in the early 1840s.

Etching of two men pulling down a long log lever above a pile of buffalo hides stacked in a frame, in front of a covered wagon

Fraeb’s Post

Henry Fraeb, a veteran of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, died defending a hastily built fortification on the Little Snake River in August 1841. Whether a true trading post ever stood nearby remains disputed, its existence woven from local tradition rather than solid record.

Ash Point

Built in 1850 along the North Platte River in Goshen County, Ash Point was a modest one-room post that briefly traded horses before burning in 1852. Its later owners went on to establish a well-known post at Fort Laramie.

painting of two trappers seated, one holding the hand of an Indigenous woman in buckskin dress, with two taller Indigenous men standing behind her

Bissonette’s North Platte River Post

From 1850 to 1854, fur trader and interpreter Joseph Bissonette ran an independent trading post on the North Platte River, serving emigrants and Lakota bands alike. He later worked as a ferryman, bridge partner, and government official through the Oregon Trail’s final violent years.

treeless plain with a low granite hill and two people riding on horseback in the distance

Archambault’s Post

Along the Sweetwater River near Independence Rock, Archambault’s Post traded with emigrants and Native peoples through the 1850s, its history tangled with the neighboring Seminoe’s Post. Abandoned by 1856, it briefly sheltered Mormon handcart emigrants stranded that fall in a killing snowstorm.

map showing route of Pony Express through Wyoming, with many stations marked, including LaBonte, four stations west of Fort Laramie

Bissonette’s LaBonte Creek Post

Joseph Bissonette relocated to LaBonte Creek in 1854, just weeks before the Grattan Fight ignited the First Sioux War. Raided twice and stripped of trade by military restrictions, his least successful post reveals how quickly the North Platte’s independent trading era collapsed.

painted mural of two groups of three men: on the left, Native American, on the right Caucasians; both groups look to the center where a Native shakes hands with a Caucasian. Above this scene is painted an eagle with olive branch in one claw and arrows in another

Moncravie House

The Moncravie House was a small trading establishment constructed in 1856 on the Laramie River approximately twelve miles upstream from Fort Laramie, in what is now Goshen County, Wyoming.

heavily eroded area of hills with many clefts, nno vegeatation

Drips’s North Platte Post

In 1857, veteran fur trader Andrew Drips built a post on the North Platte River near present-day Torrington, his last venture after decades in the Rocky Mountain and Upper Missouri trade, including stints helping run Fort William and two different posts both called Fort John. Drips traded here until his death in 1860.

early morning light on rounded hills nar a wide river on a treeless plain with fenceposts in the foreground

Guinard’s Sweetwater River Post

French-Canadian trader Louis Guinard built a bridge and trading post below Independence Rock in 1857, hoping to profit from Utah Expedition traffic, only to abandon it two years later for a bigger, and ultimately more dangerous, venture on the North Platte.

view of low-lying ranch buildings on a plain above a riverbed with rounded mountains in the distance

Gilbert’s Station

Henry Gilbert and William Garrish built a trading post at the ninth and last crossing of the Sweetwater River in 1858, a Lander Cutoff’s stopover marked by a road-builder’s murder, a Pony Express run, and a military garrison before it became known as Burnt Ranch.

distant view of wooden bridge across a river, leading to an area of sparse low buildings with rounded hills in the distance

Guinard’s Platte River Post

Louis Guinard, once a partner in John Richard’s North Platte bridge, built his own rival crossing six miles upstream in 1859, a venture that outlasted Guinard himself as owner, surviving as a Pony Express station, a Civil War-era military post, and finally Fort Caspar.

rail fences cordoning off a grassy area in front of hight rock cliffs either side of and open slot

Merchant and Williams Trading Post

Traders known only as Merchant and Williams built a post near Devil’s Gate in 1861, on ground already steeped in trading-post history, and, within a year, tangled up in Civil War troop movements, a Mormon militia company, and the site’s violent Native and emigrant past.

historical marker headlined "Rawhide Buttes" on a roadside with a road leading off into the distance through a treeless plain toward low hills in the distance

Bordeaux’s Rawhide Buttes Post

In 1862, veteran Fort Laramie trader James Bordeaux built a short-lived trading post at Rawhide Buttes. Almost nothing is known about the post itself, but the buttes remained a landmark for travelers long after Bordeaux left, later becoming a station on the stage road to the Black Hills gold rush.