Five hundred yards northwest of this site stood the Bonneville Cabins, built by Captain B.L.E. Bonneville in 1835 to store his trade goods. Three cabins were first constructed and later two more, and they became long known as “The Five Cabins,” the first mercantile establishment in central Wyoming. In 1866 Major Noyes Baldwin moved a stock of goods into the cabins to trade with Shoshoni Indians, but he left the following year because of Indian hostilities. In 1868 he established a trading post on Baldwin Creek two miles northwest of Lander, and in 1876 he moved to the site of the present M.M. Baldwin Co. store in Lander.