Fort Washakie was a

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

fort A fortification (also called a fort, fortress, fastness, or stronghold) is a military construction designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from La ...

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 so ...

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 ...

. 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 Oma ...

. 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 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 ...

of the

Shoshone The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ), also known by the endonym Newe, are an Native Americans in the United States, Indigenous people of the United States with four large cultural/linguistic divisions: * Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming * Northern Shoshon ...

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 gro ...

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 Americans in the United States, Native American tribes, the Eastern Shoshone (, ''meaning: "buffalo eaters"'') and the Norther ...

References

External links

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

Historic American Buildings Survey The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

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 of ...

Former 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