Miller felt the release that all travelers felt here. The fort was oasis, hermitage, hostelry, coolness and greenness after a weary land. And Fontenelle had a consummate refreshment for his guests, crocks of milk. And now Miller acquires primary importance for history. This was the original Fort Laramie which had been christened Fort William, as the Fort Laramie that succeeded it was christened FortJohn. We saw its sill laid bySublette’s men in 1834. Miller reaches it in 1837. Three years later Lancaster P. Lupton, who already had a post on the South Platte, built another one on the North Platte about a mile and a half from Fort Laramie. This is the ‘Fort Platte’ of the literature, a commodious and strongly built establishment that later passed to another Opposition firm, Sybille, Adams, and Company, and later still to Pratte, Cabanne and Company, also in opposition. The building of Fort Platte stimulated the Company to rebuild Fort Laramie, whose timbers were beginning to decay. It did so in 1841, moving to a new site farther up Laramie Creek. 14 They built the new post of adobe. Miller’s sketches therefore show the original fort at its original site. They are the only known pictures that do, though as a note points out Elliott Coues says that he has seen a sketch which he does not further identify. And Miller’s notebook entries are an addition to the small number of first-hand descriptions.
