Officers' quarters at Fort David A. Russell

Renowned for his photographs of the American Civil War, Alexander Gardner did important work in the American West in the late 1860s. In early 1868, he traveled to Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming, to record official treaty ceremonies with a number of American Indian tribes. While there, he also photographed Fort David Russell, established as a frontier cavalry post in 1867 in part to protect crews building the transcontinental railroad. This photograph emphasizes the vast and austere space of the American West-a land at once of great promise and challenge.