Fort Supply, Wyoming

Fort Supply, Wyoming by Merritt D. Houghton.

Fort Supply, Wyoming by Merritt D. Houghton.

Fort Supply was a Mormon pioneer-era fort in Uinta County, Wyoming, once part of Utah Territory. Located approximately 12 miles southwest of Fort Bridger, it was established in November 1853 under the direction of Mormon Apostle Orson Hyde.

The Bridger Valley (also called the Green River Valley) was a popular gathering place for Native Americans and mountain men in the first half of the 19th century. Two mountain men, Jim Bridger, and his business partner Louis Vasquez, established Fort Bridger as a trading post in the early 1840s. Several years later, Mormon pioneers established Salt Lake City, approximately 120 miles southwest of Fort Bridger. Following the territory’s establishment by the U.S. Congress in 1850, Salt Lake City became the principal settlement in the Utah Territory.

Bridger Valley, Wyoming.

Bridger Valley, Wyoming.

An act passed by the Utah Territorial legislature gave the Mormons the right to control the operation of ferries on the Green River near the Bridger Valley.  These ferries had been operated by mountain men, who opposed giving up control to the Mormons authorized by the legislature to run them. Fort Bridger also saw its trading business decline as Salt Lake City grew. Both of these things led to contention between the groups, with Mormons claiming that the mountain men were trying to incite the local natives against them.

Relations with the natives deteriorated elsewhere in the Utah Territory. By the summer of 1853, tensions between the Mormon settlers and the Ute Indians had increased, and the Walker War had begun. Trade with all natives in the Utah Territory, including in the Bridger Valley, was outlawed.

However, illegal trade continued at Fort Bridger, and in August 1853, 150 men under the command of Sheriff James Ferguson were sent to stop it. James Bridger had fled when they arrived at the fort, but when they discovered his whiskey and rum, they destroyed them. Afterward, they continued to the Green River, where they engaged the mountain men who had been unlawfully running ferries, killing some and seizing their livestock.

Fort Bridger, Wyoming

Fort Bridger, Wyoming.

Church leader Brigham Young hoped that building a fort in the area would solidify Mormon influence and control, and the settlement would provide crops and supplies for Mormons traveling west and defray the costs of sending supplies overland from Salt Lake City to Fort Bridger, a distance of about 120 miles.

Mormon Apostle Orson Hyde organized the effort to establish the “Green River Mission” and build a fort in the Bridger Valley. In October 1853, 39 young men were called to the mission during the church’s general conference. The first company of men, led by John Nebeker, left Salt Lake City for the Bridger Valley on November 2, 1853.

The remaining men left Salt Lake City on November 25 in a second company led by Isaac Bullock. By the time the second company arrived in the valley, the first company had already chosen a site for the fort, and construction on a blockhouse with four log wings had started.  This created a center room built two stories high so that a guard could be placed on the second level. After about two weeks, the blockhouse was finished, but little else could be done until the following spring, as winter had already set in.

Shoshone Indians.

Shoshone Indians.

Many missionaries’ efforts were spent that first winter surviving off supplies from Salt Lake City and learning the Shoshone language from Elijah B. Ward, a mountain man who had recently converted to Mormonism, and his native wife, Sally. However, little was accomplished, and no Shoshone were baptized into the church.

Missionaries also planted crops in the spring and continued work on the fort. Irrigation was first introduced to the area at Fort Supply, and it was also the first Anglo-Saxon settlement in what would become Wyoming.

From the beginning, the fort struggled. As the year progressed, some missionaries became discontented and began leaving for Salt Lake City without permission. By July 1854, the fort and mission had largely been abandoned, except for a small group who stayed behind to harvest the crops.

At least half of the second-year wheat crop was destroyed by an early September frost. Also, the Native Americans often petitioned the settlers for food and supplies. True to Brigham Young’s admonition that it was cheaper to feed them than to fight them, the Saints were often obliged to share their scant supplies.

During the church’s general conference in April 1855, new missionaries were called to reoccupy Fort Supply and continue the mission.  This group, led by James S. Brown, arrived at the fort in May 1855 and got to work repairing the fort and planting crops.  They also restarted the mission to the Shoshone and had some success converting natives. The 1855 crop did well until an early frost in September destroyed most of what had not yet been harvested, and food had to be carefully budgeted that winter. That year, the church purchased Fort Bridger, and Lewis Robinson was given charge over it.

In 1856, church leadership called 43 families from other settlements in the territory to join with the missionaries at Fort Supply and strengthen the community. By April 1856, the fort included a high stockade that enclosed ten acres, 25 homes, and a two-story building used as a courthouse and for other public functions. Numerous corrals, stockyards, and fenced fields had also been established. Later that year, supplies were also sent from Fort Supply to assist the Martin and Willie handcart companies, which suffered while coming west across the plains.

Mormon Handcart Pioneers

Mormon Handcart Pioneers.

Around this time, leaders at Fort Supply had received permission to establish a city. A site for what would become “Supply City” was chosen approximately three miles north of the fort, which was surveyed in June 1857. By the end of the summer, about 15 homes had been constructed.

Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston.

Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston.

U.S. General Albert Sidney Johnston led a punitive expedition against the Mormons in the Utah Territory during the Utah War in 1857. President James Buchanan had replaced Brigham Young as governor of the territory and ordered 2,500 troops to accompany Alfred Cumming, the new governor, to Utah.

As this federal force approached the territory, Young declared martial law and instructed that no federal troops would pass any closer than Fort Bridger and Fort Supply. By the fall of 1857, the families and most missionaries at Fort Supply and Supply City were recalled. However, the Utah militia, on the other hand, headed in the opposite direction towards the Bridger Valley. The militia and a few remaining men from the settlements were instructed to implement a scorched-earth policy and burn anything the approaching army could use.

As U.S. forces approached Fort Bridger and Fort Supply, the Mormons burned both posts to the ground to prevent their use by U.S. troops. Mormon convert Jesse W. Crosby, who was at the burning, indicated that 100 or more log houses, a sawmill, a gristmill, and a thrashing machine were located at the settlements.

When the Utah War ended, some settlers desired to return to the sites of Fort Supply and Supply City, but the land had been made part of the military reserve when Fort Bridger became an official U.S. military post. They requested help from Governor Cumming, who was sympathetic, but John B. Floyd, the U.S. Secretary of War, would not allow it.  Mormons did not return to the valley until the 1890s, when the military reserve was dissolved and the land opened for homesteading. This new group of Mormons primarily settled in present-day Lyman, Wyoming.

As part of Wyoming’s golden anniversary of statehood in 1937, a monument was erected near the original location of Fort Supply to pay tribute to the early pioneers who settled in the area. The monument, maintained as a satellite site of the Fort Bridger State Historic Site, is located near the modern-day community of Robertson, Wyoming. Visitors can visit the monument during summer when roads are passable on County Road 274.