Fort Caspar Restoration – Casper WY

Description

The Civil Works Administration (CWA), Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) and Works Progress Administration (WPA) performed structural renovation and historic restoration work at this site.

Casper Star-Tribune, 1934: “Dedication of the new traps today at the Izaak Walton league park near the old site of Fort Caspar will afford the Casper public opportunity to view extensive Improvement work carried on there for several months as a CWA project. Progress made in construction of a spacious, rustic lodge of logs, and a fence of the same material, and the planting of hundreds of trees and shrubs will be open to inspection. When completed the improvement will stand as an outstanding addition to recreational and educational facilities here In addition to providing the nucleus of structures that ultimately will provide a major center at the old fort site. Logs for the handsome lodge, replete with twin fireplaces of stone, were hauled from Casper mountain. The stone was brought from Jackson canyon. The lodge will provide library and museum space for the study of natural history by members and Boy Scouts.”

From the Casper, Wyoming website: “In 1936, Casper citizens and the Works Progress Administration reconstructed Platte Bridge Station using sketches made by Caspar Collins and others in the 1860s. Reconstructions of the Mormon ferry and a section of the Guinard bridge are also part of the site.”