Fort Bernard was a small

trading post A trading post, trading station, or trading house, also known as a factory in European and colonial contexts, is an establishment or settlement where goods and services could be traded. Typically a trading post allows people from one geogr ...

Wyoming Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...

, along the

North Platte River The North Platte River is a major tributary of the Platte River and is approximately long, counting its many curves.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed March 21, 2011 I ...

on the

Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and Westward Expansion Trails, emigrant trail in North America that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon Territory. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail crossed what ...

. It was established in 1845 on the site of an older fort established in the late 1830s. It was located about 8 miles southeast of Fort Laramie, and had been operated by the

American Fur Company The American Fur Company (AFC) was a prominent American company that sold furs, skins, and buffalo robes. It was founded in 1808 by John Jacob Astor, a German Americans, German immigrant to the United States. During its heyday in the early 19th c ...

. Bernard Pratte and his partner had previously owned Fort Platte on the west side of Fort Laramie but abandoned it in 1845 and enlisted Joseph Bissonette to move the operation to the east to attract travelers on the Oregon Trail before they arrived at Fort Laramie. The new fort was either named for Pratte or his father, General Bernard Pratte who had been a fur trader in his own time. In December 1845 the fort was sold to the American Fur Company and was put under the control of Bissonette and trader John Richards. The fort did excellent business in 1866, enough to cause concern with the owners of nearby Fort Laramie. Unfortunately, the fort burned down sometime during the summer of 1866 while Richards was acquiring new supplies in New Mexico and was never rebuilt. A trappers' trail connected from Bent's Fort on the south. Traders on the

Santa Fe Trail The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, who departed from the Boonslick region along the Missouri River, the ...

freighted flour here to trade to emigrants during the 1866 season.

References

Oregon Trail {{Wyoming-stub