| The town of Fort Steele derives its name from Fort Fred Steele, an army post established here in 1866 to guard the Union Pacific Railroad against Indians. At the time of the Meeker massacre, in the early eighties, it was from Fort Fred Steele that the unfortunate force commanded by Major Thornburg was sent to put down the uprising. Major Thornburg and most of his command never returned. That any of them survived was due to the dispatch of a second expedition from the fort to their relief. There is little about the town now to suggest the troubled Indian times. It serves as a place of supply for sheep herders and for the farms scattered up and down North Platte River wherever the valley is wide enough to be cultivated. The North Platte, from which the railroad diverged at the city of North Platte, 291 miles west of Omaha, is reached again at Fort Steele, 384 miles west of North Platte and 3,705 feet higher. To the left (south) as the train crosses the bridge over the North Platte at Fort Steele may be seen a sawmill which works timber cut in the mountains and floated down the river. This mill produces many railroad ties and mine props from timber grown in the Medicine Bow and Hayden National Forests. (Guidebook of the Western United States) |
