An Orinda, CA firm using 3D Laser technology to scan historic sites and "bring them back to life" is currently in the field in Wyoming and capturing the physical imprint of one of the West's most significant structures - old Fort Laramie.
Founded in 1849 when the U.S. Army, then a ragtag collection of scouts, frontiersman and adventurers led by a few "regulars," bought a former fur trader's outpost called "Fort John" and began to build a military settlement along the Oregon Trail.
Contrary to popular misconception and Hollywood B-movies, the fort was never walled nor did it have turreted blockhouses for Indians to scale and set fire to. It relied on its garrison and field pieces to keep "hostiles" at bay - until 1854, at least, when a detachment of soldiers was lured out of the fort and killed by Plains Indians upset by the intrusion of emmigrants then flooding into the West.
Now, 160 years later, CyArk of Orinda, CA is tracing the footsteps of cavalry soldiers, fortune seekers, settlers, and Mormons fleeing persecution in the East and taking painstaking 3D "portraits" of the old fort and environs to digitally preserve the Fort Laramie National Historic Site.
Working in partnership with the National Park Service, CyArk hopes to provide more accurate documentation of one of the last vestiges of the Old West for future use by conservators, researchers, the NPS staff, and the public.
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