Town of Ft. Steele

Fort Steele did not grow as planned, likely because of nearby Rawlins and because the timber industry built its own town across the river so workers did not have to cross to work or shop. In 1901, Fireman's Fund Insurance Company included a plat of Fort Steele in its insurance rating of the town. In the mid-1900s, the Vivion Sheep Companies moved most of their sheep operations east to the Wolcott area, and a few years later the U.P.R.R. moved the section crews out of the Fort Steele community. The township gained a measure of survival when the Great Lincoln Highway was built in the late 1920s, following the railroad line from Wolcott on the north side of the tracks, crossing the North Platte below Fort Steele, and passing through the old fort area west into Greenville or Parco, present-day Sinclair. Some old barracks and other buildings at Fort Steele were then used as gasoline stations, cafes, motels, and similar businesses until U.S. 30 was rerouted and paved a few years later near present-day I-80. The largest hotel at Fort Steele burned down in November 1923; it had begun in 1868 as a military barracks, had 22 rooms, and its last known owner was E.J. Bower, who had tried to sell it to J.S. Hugus in 1882, though it does not appear on either the 1886 or 1901 plats of Fort Steele. With the beginning of World War Two and the end of the timber industry, the town received its final blow and the end of its boom, and it has been mostly bust ever since.

Wyoming · United States