Creepy Cowboy Chronicles: Lively Spirits Continue to Roam Fort Caspar
Due to its rich history, haunted places in Wyoming are plentiful, but Fort Caspar in Casper may be near the top of the list of most ghostly.
Fort Caspar was a military post for the U.S. Army, named after Second Lieutenant Caspar Collins.
Collins was killed in the 1865 Battle of the Platte Bridge Station against the Lakota and Cheyenne Tribes.
Native Americans, mountain men, traders and emigrants, along with U.S. Army soldiers, all visited or lived in the area of the Upper Platte Crossing during the mid-1800s.
The North Platte River Valley was the pathway for the Oregon, California and Mormon trails and the Pony Express and transcontinental telegraph line.
The fort was founded in 1859 along the banks of the North Platte River as a trading post and toll bridge on the Oregon Trail and was active until 1867.
The post was later taken over by the U.S. Army and named Platte Bridge Station to protect emigrants and the telegraph line against raids from Lakota and Cheyenne Tribes in the ongoing wars between those nations and the U.S.
The site of the fort is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is now owned and operated by the City of Casper as the Fort Caspar Museum and Historic Site.
Ghost tour
During the fort’s history, there were multiple battles resulting in many deaths near the location where the fort sits today.
The Fort Caspar Museum Association partners with the Fort Caspar Museum to host ghost tour investigations for the public twice a year.
Attendees are able to go on three different tours – the battle tour, the cemetery tour and the fort buildings tour.
Ghost hunters can wander around the small commemorative cemetery near the entrance gates where 11 headstones represent the 11 soldiers of the 11th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry who died in the line of duty while stationed at the fort.
According to the association, the first marker was installed in 1970 for Private David Umphlet of the 11th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, who died of scurvy and disease while traveling from Three Crossings Station to Fort Laramie.
Another wandering soul could be Lieutenant Henry C. Bretney of Company G, 11th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry who commanded the post from the fall of 1863 into the summer of 1865, the association states.
During the annual ghost tours, individuals brave enough can tour the telegraph office and possibly meet a young soldier who lost his life guarding the transcontinental telegraph lines linking the East and West coasts.
Other figures roaming in the dark could be Major Martin Anderson of the 11th Kansas Volunteer Cavalry who was in command of the post during the two battles in July 1865.
Fort Caspar visitors have reported hearing faint whispers of conversations and feeling the weight of history hanging heavy in the air.
Ghost hunters have been known to play checkers with ghostly spirits, smell a fresh cigar in the air or hear voices answering questions through a spirit box.
There’s plenty of activity, and not only during the night, of soldiers who ate, worked and slept on fort grounds where it is most accessible for the public to interact with.
Ghost hunters can search the grounds using temperature guns, electromagnetic field meters, radiating electro-magneticity pods and laser grids.
The energy of what happened in the 1800s are still strong at the fort, with historical artifacts, documents and spirits wandering the grounds.
Melissa Anderson is the editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. Send comments on this article to roundup@wylr.net.
