Camp Brown

Fort Washakie was a United States Army fort located in present-day Wyoming. The fort was originally named Camp Augur in 1869, after General Christopher C Augur, who was the commander of the Department of the Platte. It was established to help protect travelers on the Overland Trail from attacks by Native Americans. As often happens, Camp Augur was renamed Camp Brown in honor of Captain Frederick H Brown in 1870. Brown was killed in the Fetterman Massacre in 1866.

The fort was renamed again on December 30, 1878, in honor of Chief Washakie of the Shoshone tribe. That renaming made this fort one of the only United States military outposts to be named after a Native American. Another fort that was 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 Chief Washakie and Lewis and Clark Expedition 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 state of Wyoming, and it is shared by two Native American tribes, the Eastern Shoshone and the Northern Arapaho. I’ve driven through parts of the reservation every time I go to Thermopolis, but I have never been to Fort Washakie. I think maybe I should have a look sometime.