Jacques Laramie (also known as Jacques La Remy and LaRamie) was a French Canadian who worked as a fur trapper and trader for the North West Company, which traded furs out of Canada.
In 1815 or 1816, LaRamie and a small group of fellow trappers settled in the area where Fort Laramie would later be located (LaRamie’s Point). This was the confluence of the North Platte River and what is now the Laramie River. In 1821, against his fellow trappers’ warnings about hostile Native American tribes, LaRamie decided to pursue trapping along the river that now bears his name. When he did not show up for the rendezvous the following year, a search party went looking for him.
LaRamie is said to have been killed by either Arapahoes or Utes and placed in the river by a beaver dam near the headwaters of the Laramie river. This area is in Colorado near Cameron Pass. Here, his remains were found several years later by the expedition sent to locate him. The river was named “Laramie” in his honor, and the name would later be given to the Laramie Mountains, as well as the towns of Laramie and Fort Laramie, Wyoming.
Learn more about Jacques LaRamie and more great Wyoming history here.