Fort Washakie was a

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...

fort A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

in what is now the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Wyoming Wyoming () is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the s ...

. The fort was established in 1869 and named Camp Augur after General Christopher C. Augur, commander of the

Department of the Platte The Department of the Platte was a military administrative district established by the U.S. Army on March 5, 1866, with boundaries encompassing Iowa, Nebraska, Dakota Territory, Utah Territory and a small portion of Idaho. With headquarters in Om ...

. In 1870 the camp was renamed Camp Brown in honor of Captain Frederick H. Brown, who was killed in the

Fetterman Massacre The Fetterman Fight, also known as the Fetterman Massacre or the Battle of the Hundred-in-the-Hands or the Battle of a Hundred Slain, was a battle during Red Cloud's War on December 21, 1866, between a confederation of the Lakota, Cheyenne, and ...

in 1866. It was renamed again in 1878 in honor of Chief Washakie of the Shoshone tribe, making the fort one of the only U.S. military outposts named after a Native American. (Another fort named for a Native American was Fort E.S. Parker, the original Crow Agency in Montana that operated from 1869 to 1875, which was named after the Seneca lawyer Eli Parker, who was a General under Ulysses Grant.) Fort Washakie was operated as a military outpost until 1909, when it was decommissioned and turned over to the Shoshone Indian Agency. The graves of Washakie and

Lewis and Clark Expedition The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was a select gr ...

guide Sacajawea are located on the grounds of the fort. The site is included within the present-day

Wind River Indian Reservation The Wind River Indian Reservation, in the west-central portion of the U.S. state of Wyoming, is shared by two Native American tribes, the Eastern Shoshone ( shh, Gweechoon Deka, ''meaning: "buffalo eaters"'') and the Northern Arapaho ( arp, ...

References

External links

Fort Washakie, Building No. 1, Washakie Street, Fort Washakie, Fremont, WY
at the

Historic American Buildings Survey Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) is a division of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) responsible for administering the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and Historic American Landscapes ...

Washakie Washakie (1804/1810 – February 20, 1900) was a prominent leader of the Shoshone people during the mid-19th century. He was first mentioned in 1840 in the written record of the American fur trapper, Osborne Russell. In 1851, at the urging o ...

Closed installations of the United States Army Buildings and structures in Fremont County, Wyoming Wyoming Territory Civilian Conservation Corps in Wyoming Historic American Buildings Survey in Wyoming Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Wyoming National Register of Historic Places in Fremont County, Wyoming 1869 establishments in Wyoming Territory Wind River Indian Reservation