The Quartermaster’s Department built, maintained, and supplied military posts, providing quarters, barracks, construction, infrastructure, transportation for personnel and supplies, and most equipment and commodities. This area once held busy workshops for blacksmiths, wheelwrights, farriers, carpenters, painters, and saddlers, along with warehouses storing grain, clothing, lumber, tools, and general supplies. Large corrals for draft animals, including horses, mules, and oxen, stood beyond the warehouses, with adjoining yards filled with firewood and hay. In 1875, the quartermaster rolls listed 52 civilian employees, mostly teamsters, along with a telegraph operator, an engineer, clerks, interpreters, blacksmiths, saddlers, and other skilled craftsmen, earning from $35 to $125 per month. During the height of the Northern Plains Indian Wars, Fort Laramie served as the army’s main command and logistics center, and teamsters carried immense quantities of supplies across the West in freight wagons drawn by multiple teams of oxen. These wagon trains were massive, with wagons carrying four tons of cargo, and teamsters were known for their toughness and coarse behavior. The wagon master, who directed the freight wagons, could earn up to $150 a month. In 1858, the freighting firm of Russell, Majors, and Wadell used 3,500 wagons, 40,000 oxen, 1,000 mules, and more than 4,000 drivers to meet its government contract.