Fort Bernard was a small trading post between Horse Creek and Fort Laramie on the Oregon Trail. It was noted by many overland trail emigrants before and after the California gold rush of 1849, but there is no definite information about the owner or how long it continued. A trappers' trail from Bent's Fort on the south joined the Oregon Trail at this post. Traders on Taos Trail and Santa Fe Trail freighted flour here to trade to emigrants bound for the coast.

Source: Dictionary of American History by James Truslow Adams, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940