In 1834, Robert Campbell and William Sublette established Fort William, the first fort at the confluence of the North Platte and Laramie Rivers. The rectangular post measured only 100 by 80 feet, with a palisade of hewn cottonwood logs 15 feet high, log blockhouses at diagonal corners, and a third blockhouse with a cannon mounted over the front gate. Along the inside of the stockade stood cabins, workshops, and storehouses whose flat roofs reached to within three feet of the top of the wall. By the time the fort was founded, the beaver trade was already declining, and Campbell and Sublette saw greater opportunity in trading with Native Americans for buffalo robes. Each spring, caravans brought trade goods to the fort, and in the fall, tons of buffalo hides and other furs were shipped east. Fort William's exact location is unknown, but it was certainly within a mile of this site and perhaps on the same ground. In the early nineteenth century, mountain men emerged on the American frontier as adventurers, explorers, and part-time diplomats whose heyday lasted less than 30 years but left a lasting mark on western history. Trappers endured harsh lives, spending months in cold mountain streams trapping beaver and other fur-bearing mammals. Beginning in 1825 and continuing for the next 16 years, they gathered at annual rendezvous to exchange furs for supplies and trade goods and to celebrate a successful season. The river below was named for French-Canadian trapper Jacques LaRamee, who was reportedly killed in the early 1820s on the stream that now bears his name; little else is known about him, though at least seven geographic features in Wyoming were named after him.