Fort Laramie Hospital Ruins
by Jon Burch Photography
Title
Fort Laramie Hospital Ruins
Artist
Jon Burch Photography
Medium
Photograph - Digital Capture
Description
On the plains of eastern Wyoming, just above the confluence of the Laramie and North Platte Rivers, stands a cluster of some fifteen restored and semi-restored buildings, as well as a number of additional stabilized ruins. Far removed from today's principal routes of cross-country travel, these structures once stood athwart perhaps the most famous of all transcontinental route - the Oregon Trail. And, for half a century, they formed part of the most important military post on the northern plains - Fort Laramie.
The post hospital was the first building at Fort Laramie constructed of lime grout, a locally produced concrete. The building, constructed in 1873, housed a 12-bed ward, dispensary, dining room, and post surgeon's office. Archeological investigation has revealed that the hospital was constructed on the site of an earlier cemetery dating to when the fort was owned by Sublette and Campbell and the American Fur Company.
While its beginnings were not particularly auspicious, Fort Laramie from the start was associated with the legendary names of the mountain trade and the frontier. Originally constructed in 1834 as a small timber stockade, it was designed to serve the purposes of the mountain trade carried on by its founders-Robert Campbell and William Sublette. The following year "title" was transferred to the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, among whose owners were Milton Sublette, Jim Bridger and Thomas Fitzpatrick. Unable to compete successfully with the American Fur Company of John Jacob Astor, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company sold "Fort William" - named after Sublette - to the "Company". A new adobe stockade and a new name - Fort John - was supplied. This is the post that figures so prominently in James Michener's novel Centennial, although the structure called "Fort John" in the television production of the same name is, in fact, a National Park Service reconstruction of a perhaps equally famous trading post on the southern plains - Bent's Fort on the Arkansas
At Fort Laramie, the ruins of the post hospital stand on a hill behind the cavalry barracks. The state of frontier medicine was not highly developed and, as a result, infection and contagious disease were very difficult to combat. Cholera was the scourge of the trail for emigrants and Indians alike, particularly since the latter had none of the natural immunity built up by the white population over generations. Contrary to the robust image of movie and television portrayals, the health of the native population was, after contact with the whites, substantially diminished. A case in point - the following reports by Dr. J.C.R. Clark, Vaccinating Agent for the United States Government. In a letter to Charles Mix, Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Dr. Clark made the following comments on October 25, 1859: "The diseases most prevalent among the Indians of the Upper Platte, so far as I have been able to observe, are of a cutaneous and pulmonary character. Bangs seems to be one of the peculiar pathological institutions of the country. Chronic Catarrhal & Gonorrheal Opthalmitis is found prevailing to a great extent. Syphilitic affections among the prairie tribes are seldom met with which may readily be accounted for as their intercourse with the Whites is so much more limited than those of other tribes residing contiguous to our people."
The low levels or absence of anesthetics to control shock, as well as the problem of infection already noted, made amputation as a treatment only modestly preferable to outright execution! One of the reasons Indians preferred to battle in a state of semi-nakedness reflected their grasp of the dangers which attended the introduction of foreign materials such as clothing into a wound. Amputation-induced fatalities struck civilians as well as the military.
However, a number survived frontier surgery or amputation, primitive though it may have been. After all, Marcus Whitman successfully removed a Blackfoot arrowhead from Jim Bridger's back at the Rendezvous of 1835 and, although his diseased leg eventually caused his death, Milton Sublette underwent amputations of his leg on several occasions. In the process of stabilizing the ruins of the post hospital, the accompanying excavation resulted in the discovery of an older post cemetery on the same site. Among the remains uncovered were those of a man who had had one leg cut off - Milton Sublette. Not surprisingly, the juxtaposition of the cemetery and the hospital led, in the ensuing years, to numerous comments about the relative effectiveness of frontier medicine! - The National Tombstone Epitaph, November, 1981.
Image copyright 2014 Jon Burch Photography
Uploaded
July 11th, 2014
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