Alone at Fort Steele

While traveling to Rawlins, Wyoming from Salt Lake City I stopped at a spot that used to be a bustling army fort from 1868-1886. Fort Fred Steele was established by Major Richard I. Dodge, 30^th U.S. Infantry in Carbon County, Wyoming.  Dodge named the fort after Colonel Frederick Steele of the 20^th U.S. Infantry.  Fort Steele was one of three military forts designed to protect the Union Pacific Railroad route through Wyoming. It was established at a strategic point where the railroad crossed the North Platte River. Original military structures at Fort Steele included a commanding officer’s quarters, two large warehouses, a powder magazine, two enlisted barracks and a number of smaller structures. After the post closed in 1886 a small community grew up in and around the abandoned fort. In 1922 the transcontinental Lincoln Highway was routed right along the edge of the fort but it was rerouted in 1939 and the town faded away. There were no other tourists around the day I visited Fort Steele.  At times it was so quiet I could almost hear history.  Then a 21st century train would come through and it drowned out any imagined sounds of the past.