On July 19, 1867, Fort Fetterman was established at the mouth of the La Prele Creek and was named in honor of brevet Lieut. Col. W. J. Fetterman, captain in the Twenty-fourth Regular Infantry, who was killed near Fort Phil Kearny on December 21, 1866. By 1872 it had been enlarged to a post of four companies and was one of the best equipped military establishments in the state. At that time the nearest Indians were the Ogallala Sioux, 385 lodges; the Cheyenne, 300 lodges; the Arapaho, 150 lodges; and a few straggling bands of other tribes. A small garrison was maintained here until 1878, when the necessity for a military post in the locality no longer existed and the fort was abandoned by order of the secretary of war, nearly all of the reservation of sixty square miles being then transferred to the interior department.
Source: History of Wyoming, Volume 1, by I. S. Bartlett, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1918
