The Laramie Plains in the 19th century were not occupied by any one tribe but instead utilized by the Northern Arapaho, Northern Cheyenne, Oglala Sioux, Eastern Shoshone, and White River Utes. Sources state that the Laramie Plains “fell outside what would be considered the home territories of the tribes that used it.”.[1] The territories of these tribes abutted on the Plains. Francis Parkman relates in his book, The Oregon Trail, how he accompanied a band of Oglala on a buffalo hunt on The Plains in 1846, recording their fears of war parties. He was told that a ten-man Oglala war party led by the son of the band's chief was wiped out there near the Laramie Mountains in 1845 by a Shoshone war party ranging almost into Sioux territory.[2]
The plains also furnished a convenient transportation route through the region for trails that ascended through the mountains along the Cache la Poudre River, such as the Cherokee Trail, by which Cherokee from Indian Territory (Oklahoma) traveled to California.
Captain Howard Stansbury, U.S. Army Topographical Engineer, was exploring a route back from the Great Salt Lake over Laramie Plains in the summer of 1849 when his party encountered stampeding buffalo near the present city of Laramie, which was taken to be a sign of Indian hunters. His guide, the celebrated mountain man Jim Bridger, walked out to meet with them and negotiate in sign language, learning they were Sioux and feared Stansbury’s party might be a Crow warriors.[3] The Sioux invited Bridger and Stansbury to their village camped nearby for a feast. At the end of his exploration, Stansbury recommended the route from Fort Bridger in western Wyoming through Laramie Plains to the forks of the Platte (just west of modern North Platte, Nebraska), which later became part of the Overland Trail and Overland Stage Line.
East-West communications – the Pony Express, the transcontinental telegraph line, and the transcontinental stage line carrying the mails – followed the Oregon Trail to Fort Laramie and over South Pass until 1862, when Indian attacks forced the stage line to reroute to the Overland Trail. A detachment of soldiers from Fort Laramie cut across The Plains and built Fort Halleck at the base of Elk Mountain to protect the line.[4]
In 1868 the plains were traversed by the route of the Union Pacific Railroad as part of the First transcontinental railroad. The building of the railroad caused a boom in the valley population, with the establishment of "Laramie City", which later became the site of the University of Wyoming. U.S. Highway 30, an all-weather route from coast-to-coast, was built along the railroad and was known as the Lincoln Highway. Today, Interstate 80 also follows the Overland Trail, coming very close to the site of Fort Halleck (Wyoming) near Fremont’s 1843 campsite at the base of Elk Mountain.