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The Phantoms of Fort Laramie
Fort Laramie National Historic Site
Fort Laramie, Wyoming
From March of 1834 until March of 1890, Fort Laramie served as the hub of expansion into the Northwest. Wagon trains and other caravans on the major trails, including the California, the Oregon, and later the Bozeman, all passed the gates of what some historians have called the Queen of the Frontier Forts.
From its beginnings as an early fur-trading post until the last assembly of U.S. Army troops on the parade ground, this grand old fort saw every type of character who ever traveled into the vast frontier west of the Mississippi.
Today it is a national historic site, dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of history. Many people from all over the United States and the world visit the fort grounds annually to see the remnants of a faded but glorious past. Permanent staff members and summer intern workers give tours and relate the fort's history. And many of those who work there today, or who have worked there previously, will say the past may still exist within those walls. They say the old fort is still alive.
Retired ranger and caretaker Mike Caligiore worked at Fort Laramie from 1971 through 1985.
"After so many years out here, you see and hear all kinds of things," Caligiore related. "You don't say anything, because people would think you were batty, but I've seen them and so have others."
Caligiore remembers Quarters A, also known as the Captain's Quarters, to have an unusual presence within its walls. The two-story structure was built as a duplex, so that separate families could reside within the same building. Heavy doors were built in front and back on both sides of the duplex, and dead-bolt locks were installed to prevent entry from any direction.
As was Caligiore's duty, he would lock up Quarters A each night after the grounds were closed and the rounds were made. In the late fall and winter months the sun would be going down, or the landscape would be in total darkness. Visitors would be few at that time of year, and everyone working had little reason to remain after working hours.
On numerous occasions, Caligiore would be the last one left on the grounds. With his big flashlight, he would walk into Quarters A, often to meet with the inexplicable.
"I would walk through the front door on the east side," Caligiore remembers, "and then lock it behind me. I would go down the hallway to the back door and lock it. I then would go through the other side, from the back to the front, locking both doors behind me. But a lot of times I would come out the east side of the building to find a surprise. The first door would be unlocked and standing wide open."
Not only would the door be unlocked, but the heavy tumbler would be turned up as well. This became common. At first it confused Caligiore, then it startled him. He knew he was locking the doors as he went; he made a concerted effort to do so each time he made his rounds. It was obvious to Mike Caligiore that someone unseen was living in Quarters A.
The strange case of the unlocked doors grew to be more chilling to the caretaker. Noises upstairs on the second floor, or in the attic, would occur when he was making his rounds. Often the sounds could be heard in the daytime as well. But numerous investigations showed no one around, nor anything inanimate that might have fallen or tumbled down the stairs. Whoever was within the walls of Quarters A was invisible.
"One night it really got to me," Caligiore says. "I was making my rounds with my flashlight. I entered Quarters A and locked the front door of the first part of the building. Then I got ten feet from the back door and suddenly I felt someone grab me, slap me on the back. I swung the flashlight around real hard to hit whoever had grabbed me, and there was nothing there."
It happened several more times before Caligiore decided he had to do something about it, apart from reporting it. Who would believe him? It occurred to him to give the presence a name and see if he could communicate with whoever or whatever it was.
Caligiore named the ghost George.
"You might think I'm crazy, but I'd say to him, ‘George, now if you want to go out or come in, you do it before I lock the door, okay? I have to keep these doors locked.'"
The approach seemed to work. Caligiore had less trouble keeping the doors locked after that. But it seemed that "George" would either forget or go back to his mischievous ways, and on occasion Caligiore would have to remind the spiritual presence about the doors.
The ghost in the Captain's Quarters seems to have an officer's personality. It appears to want control of the structure. This was, and apparently still is, true of another one of the famous buildings on the grounds—a structure called Old Bedlam. Built in 1849 as quarters for bachelor officers, it became post headquarters. As such, Old Bedlam was no doubt the scene of many historic decisions involving Indian warfare and the escorting of the numerous wagon trains through hostile territory.
In 1863-64, Lieutenant Colonel William O. Collins commanded the fort. He and his wife lived on the second floor of the structure. During that period the building was the center of social life at the post, and the name Old Bedlam came into being. It is difficult to say whether it is Colonel Collins or some other ranking officer who makes an occasional appearance in Old Bedlam, but there is little doubt some eerie form of decision making is still being carried out here.
Two young women who worked there as summer help can remember the sunny afternoon in 1985 when they found themselves reunited with the dead.
They were sitting on the upper balcony of the building, talking and laughing. Suddenly there was a sharp rapping against the window directly behind them. Both girls turned to see the curtains drawn and the figure of a man in a cavalry officer's uniform looking out at them. "Be quiet!" he ordered. "We're having a meeting in here." Then he vanished before their eyes.
One of the young women sprained an ankle running down the stairs, but did not even feel the pain until at least a hundred yards away from Old Bedlam, where she collapsed and nearly went into shock.
"There are a lot of things that happen out there most people wouldn't believe," Caligiore says. "But when it happens to you, you know it's not your imagination."
Various persons among those who work or have worked at the fort say that the cavalry barracks at times seem to have a life of their own. When it happens it is usually at dawn. You can hear the sounds of heavy tromping on the wooden boardwalks—as if a number of heavy boots were running along, in a hurry to get someplace. The sounds can end as suddenly as they begin.
Those who have heard the noise wonder if it isn't the sound of ghost soldiers answering reveille. The sound is unmistakable, they say—the heavy tromping, almost thundering on the old boardwalk. But the listener can only stare at an old, empty building.
Encounters with whatever it is from the past that remains behind at Fort Laramie are not limited to the employees. Some visitors have felt something at a particular place on the grounds, something they likely will never be able to explain.
Many visitors come to Fort Laramie on a yearly basis. Often they see or feel things and tell someone without ever leaving their name. One such visitor was a man educated in the care and psychological treatment of abused children. His visit to the fort left him visibly shaken and depressed.
"I got a very strong sensation while standing in the ruins of the old colonel's quarters," he told a tour guide. "I just know that some time in the distant past there had been some form of child abuse there. Just what I really don't know, but it was definitely child abuse. I didn't see or hear anything, but I certainly felt it."
There seems without question to be a lot of strong energy and emotion from the past that lingers in the ruins and even in the rebuilt sections of old Fort Laramie. Residents of the little town of Fort Laramie, and all along the old Oregon Trail, are aware of that.
It is also well known that Fort Laramie's phantom residents do not all exist within the fort grounds proper. In fact, the oldest ghost known to exist at this major historical site is one that reportedly can be seen riding a black horse every seven years—a woman in a green riding dress.
It is said that in 1871, Lieutenant James Nicholas Allison arrived at Fort Laramie from West Point to assume a cavalry command. He was well known and liked among the officers and immediately became part of the social structure at the fort.
A favorite pastime was wolf hunting, and Lieutenant Allison was asked to join one of the afternoon chases. Allison, who took his dog along, and the other hunters spread out over the wide rolling plains beyond the fort.
Late in the afternoon Allison found himself separated from the main group and decided to return to the fort. While riding back across a long hill, Allison saw a woman in a green dress on a black stallion traveling below him along the old Oregon Trail. She appeared to have long hair that was pinned up under a hat, with a black veil down over her face.
Allison, taken by surprise, could not understand why a woman would be riding way out there all alone. He didn't recognize her as being from the fort. He could see, though, that she was riding the black stallion at a run, and it occurred to the lieutenant that she might be in danger. He immediately gave chase.
Though Allison called out and tried to catch up to her, the woman kicked her horse all the harder and used a jeweled riding crop on its flank to outdistance Allison's horse. Allison hadn't noticed that his dog did not give chase with him but remained behind—pacing around and whining. Allison continued to pursue the young woman. But she was too far ahead and disappeared over the hill. A puzzled Allison rode to the summit, trying to understand why she hadn't stopped. He looked across the vast Wyoming plains in all directions. There was only the continuous wind and nothing else. There was no woman on a black horse to be seen anywhere. What bothered him even more was the absence of tracks on the trail. There was only unsettled dust.
Lieutenant Allison began to feel odd, wondering if he had actually seen the woman or not. Nothing at this point indicated there had ever been a woman in green on horseback. Finally he rode back down to where his dog stood whining, waiting for him. Allison's amazement turned to alarm; the dog was also visibly shaken. The lieutenant began to wonder if he hadn't just seen a ghost. He had no other way of explaining it.
When Allison returned to the fort, the other officers asked him what had kept him. They had become worried and were about to go out looking for him. The lieutenant hesitated at first, but finally shrugged and told them about the young woman in the green riding dress who wouldn't let him approach her.
"The Woman in Green," one of the older officers said. He was nodding, watching Allison's expression. "She's a ghost that rides out there," the older officer added. "Every seven years she rides. That don't mean your luck will turn bad, though."
Lieutenant Allison was somewhat relieved at the news, glad to know he hadn't lost his sanity. Yet the vision bothered him. He learned that the legend of the Woman in Green reached back at least twenty years before his arrival. The story was that the young woman had been an officer's daughter, brought out when the fort changed over from a fur-trading post to a military cantonment. The stories varied some, but it was thought the officer's daughter had wanted to marry someone he didn't want her marrying, and she had become angry and hard to manage.
She was prone to riding out from the fort against her father's wishes. It was during one of those rides that she never returned. She was never found, and until some of the neighboring Sioux clans and tribal bands began to tell stories of a Wasicun woman in green on a black horse who disappears, no one knew the fate of the officer's daughter. She had obviously died or been killed, and had felt compelled to ride that black horse somewhere—even in death.
From the time of the Woman in Green until the present, the impressions of the past have been strong at Old Fort Laramie. Located just off I-25 in the remote plains of southern Wyoming, the fort shows evidence that the Old West still lives here along with the New West. And those who have felt and seen the fort's past will always know that the remains of one of the West's most important military posts will always tell its stories in one form or another—and often from the lips of the dead.
Copyright © 1988, 1994, 1998 by Earl P. Murray
