Three miles east of the Benton site is Fort Fred Steele State Historic Site. The original Ft. Steele was named for American Civil War Union General Frederick Steele and established June 20, 1868 to protect the Union Pacific Railway as it rapidly expanded west. The fort was deactivated August 7, 1886, and most of the buildings at the fort were sold and moved to the settlement which had grown up around the fort and other locations. The small community continued until 1939 when the Lincoln Highway was paved and rerouted to coincide with what later became Interstate 80. In 1940, following the short-lived Supreme Court decision Minersville School District v. Gobitis, residents tarred and feathered the town's Jehovah's Witnesses. The Wyoming State Legislature preserved what remained in 1973 with creation of the state historical site.