National Trails System

National Park Service

U.S. Department of the Interior

National Historic Trails

Auto Tour Route Interpretive Guide

Across Wyoming

“Rendezvous” by William Henry 

Jackson
“Emigrants Crossing the Rocky Mountains.” Image is courtesy of the Library of Congress.
NATIONAL HISTORIC TRAILS

AUTO TOUR ROUTE INTERPRETIVE 

GUIDE

Across Wyoming

Prepared by

National Park Service

 National Trails System—Intermountain Region

324 South State Street, Suite 200

Box 30

Salt Lake City, Utah 84111

Telephone: 801-741-1012

www.nps.gov/cali

www.nps.gov/oreg

www.nps.gov/poex

www.nps.gov/mopi

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

July 2007
Contents

Introduction	 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 1

Gateway to the West	 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 2

Blazing the Trail		 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 5

Approaching the Rockies	 	 • • • • • • • • • 7

Sweetwater to South Pass	 	 • • • • • • • • • 	 13

Beyond the Great Divide	 • • • • • • • • • • • • • 18

Leapfrogging Across Wyoming	 • • • • • • • • • 	 23

Ho for California! \ Oregon or Bust!	 • • • • • • 	 27

Fire on the Plains	 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 	30

God Speed to the Boy & the Pony!	 • • • • • • 	34

The End of the Trail Era • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 	36

Sites and Points of Interest	 • • • • • • • • • • • • • 37

	 Across Wyoming

FOR MORE INFORMATION: • • • • • • • • • • • • • 77

Credits: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 77

REGIONAL MAP • • • • • • • • • • • Inside Back Cover
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

Many of the pioneer trails and other historic routes that are important in 

our nation’s past have been designated by 

Congress as National Historic Trails. While 

most of those old roads and routes are not 

open to motorized traffic, people can drive 

along modern highways that lie close to, or 

parallel, the original trails. Those modern 

roads are designated as Auto Tour Routes, and they are marked with 

highway signs and trail logos to help today’s travelers follow the trails 

used by the pioneers who helped to open the American west.

This interpretive publication guides visitors along the Auto Tour 

Routes for the Oregon, California, Mormon Pioneer, and Pony 

Express National Historic Trails as they cross the state of Wyoming 

from east to west. Site-by-site driving directions are included, and an 

overview map is located inside the back cover. To make the tour more 

meaningful, this guide also provides an historical overview of the four 

trails, shares the thoughts and experiences of emigrants who followed 

those routes, and indicates how the westward expansion impacted 

native peoples of the Intermountain West.

Individual Auto Tour Route interpretive guides such as this one are in 

preparation for each state through which the trails pass. In addition, 

individual National Park Service interpretive brochures for the four 

national historic trails are available at many trail-related venues, and 

can be requested from the National Trails System Administrative 

Office at 324 South State, Suite 200, Salt Lake City, Utah 84111. These 

brochures include a map of the entire trail and provide an overview 

of information about each of the trails. Additional information about 

each trail also can be found on individual trail web sites. Links are 

listed on the “For More Information” page of this guide.
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Wyoming

Eastern view of the Sweetwater River Valley from atop Independence Rock, by William 

Henry Jackson. Image is courtesy of the Brigham Young University Online Collection.
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Wyoming

GATEWAY TO THE WEST

History is geography set into motion.

 --Johann Gottfried Herder, 18th century philosopher of history

The Rocky Mountains stretch like a jagged spine between Alaska and Mexico, splitting North America into East and West. The 

Continental Divide is not a simple line of peaks, easily threaded by 

tracks and roads, but a complex of overlapping mountain ranges and 

treeless sagebrush steppe, hundreds of miles wide. In the days of 

covered wagon travel, the Rockies were an imposing barrier to the 

movement of people, commerce, and communications.

Early explorers probed the Northern Rockies looking for the 

fabled “Northwest Passage” that would open an easy route for 

transcontinental traffic. The men of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of 

Discovery finally put that myth to rest in 1805, when they nearly 

perished crossing Montana’s Bitterroot Range at Lemhi Pass. But 

the Absarokas (Crows), Shoshones, and other tribes knew of a much 

easier gateway through the mountains some 400 miles farther south, 

in today’s Wyoming.

A small band of traders from the Pacific Fur Company discovered 

their secret in 1812. Robert Stuart and his men left Fort Astoria, a 

company post on the Columbia River, in June of that year to carry 

business dispatches overland to New York. Misfortune nipped 

their heels from the start: one man attempted suicide, mosquitoes 

were a constant torment, and a Shoshone guide ran off with Stuart’s 

horse. But before disappearing, the guide told the Astorians of a 

shorter route through the central Rockies, and they decided to look 

for it on their own. Three months into their journey, snarling fate 

turned vicious: as the traders approached the Teton Range near 

today’s Idaho-Wyoming border, an Absaroka war party captured all 

their horses. Now Stuart’s men were afoot in unfamiliar country, a 

thousand miles from any settlement, without supplies and on the 

sharp edge of a Rocky Mountain winter. The desperate men were 

picking their way eastward when they struck an Indian trace that led 

them south of the Wind River Range and through a broad pass over 

the Great Divide. They had found the Shoshone’s “shorter route,” but 

still were deep in unfriendly wilderness. After a hungry winter spent 

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Interpretive Auto Tour 

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huddled on the eastern plains of Wyoming, Stuart’s tough little band 

finally reached St. Louis in April 1813, bringing news of the southern 

pass that could open the continent to wagon travel. 

Their news was drowned out by the commotion of conflict with 

England, the War of 1812. The great southern pass was forgotten until 

friendly Absarokas directed a small party of mountain men, which 

included the legendary Jedediah Smith, James Clyman, and Thomas 

Fitzpatrick, through the gap in 1824.

Then, at last, geography “set into motion.” Trappers and pack-mule 

caravans began carrying supplies over South Pass to the annual fur 

trade fair, or Rendezvous. Mountain man William Sublette took 

the first wagons to Rendezvous in 1830, but stopped just east of the 

Continental Divide. Although Sublette showed that loaded wagons 

could make the trip into the mountains, the “fur trace” was so rough 

that he returned with pack mules the next year. Captain Benjamin L. 

E. Bonneville, leading a 20-wagon supply train, blazed the first wagon 

3

Historical marker on South Pass recognizing the first “white” women to make the trek 

to Oregon in 1836.
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track over South Pass in 1832, and more carts and wagons followed. 

Soon other travelers began joining up with the annual fur caravans 

for safe overland passage. Missionaries Marcus & Narcissa Whitman 

and Henry & Eliza Spalding crossed the Rockies with the fur brigade 

in 1836, proving that women were not too delicate for the trials of 

the trail. Four years later, emigrants Joel and Mary Walker, with four 

children and two covered wagons, joined the last supply caravan 

heading to the very last trappers’ Rendezvous. They reached Oregon 

in September 1840, and in January Mary gave birth to a daughter. The 

Walkers showed that even children and mothers “in a family way” 

could make the 2,000-mile overland trip. Their example helped open 

the floodgates of the emigration.

First a trickle, then a stream, and finally a torrent of humanity, 

livestock, and technology poured through South Pass over the next 

three decades. Government survey parties and soldiers, missionaries, 

emigrant wagon and handcart companies, hopeful gold-seekers 

and adventurers, countless stage and mail coaches, commercial 

freight wagons, riders of the Pony Express, and the transcontinental 

telegraph — all funneled through that 20-mile-wide passage through 

the Continental Divide. So many hooves and wheels cut into the earth 

that the ground in places is still scored with ruts.

South Pass was the gateway to the West. Without that accident of 

geography, there would have been no Oregon Trail, no California 

Trail, no Mormon Utah, and perhaps no United States stretching 

from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

And it comes forcibly to 

mind that this passage in the 

great Rocky Mountains was 

fashioned by the supreme 

ruler to aid the progress of 

the American people in their 

westward march to the Pacific 

Ocean.

— Joseph Buffum, 1849 

South Pass - Gateway to the West. California emigration
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Wyoming

BLAZING THE TRAIL

The first emigrant wagon train bound for California, known as the Bidwell-Bartleson Party, struck out from Independence, 

Missouri, in the spring of 1841. “Our ignorance of the route was 

complete,” admitted John Bidwell, a 21-year-old Pennsylvania 

schoolteacher who lent his name and leadership to the wagon 

company. “We knew that California lay west, and that was the extent of 

our knowledge.”

That was the extent of most everybody’s knowledge. The trail in 

1841 was barely a track worn along the Platte River by the packmule and cart caravans of the Rocky Mountain fur trade. Hopeful 

greenhorns would have no beaten wagon road to follow over plain 

and mountain to California or Oregon. No useful map of the route 

existed. Emigrants would find no road signs, no bridges or ferries 

at river crossings, and no place to replace exhausted oxen and food 

supplies. The 68 souls who first set out with John Bidwell into that 

arid unknown have been praised as bold visionaries and spurned as 

risk-taking fools.

5

“Pilgrims of the Plains,” by Alfred R. Waud, Harpers Weekly, December 23, 1871. 

Illustration is courtesy of the Library of Congress.
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Whatever they were, they were lucky. A few days out of Independence, 

they managed to join up with Thomas “Broken Hand” Fitzpatrick, 

who was already guiding a company of missionaries to the Pacific 

Northwest. The famous mountain man agreed to take the emigrants 

along the Platte and through the Rockies as far as the Fort Hall area 

in today’s Idaho. From there they would have to find their own way. 

Amazingly, they did.

The way Fitzpatrick took his pilgrims—on the old trappers’ route 

up the North Platte River into central Wyoming, up the Sweetwater, 

and over South Pass— became the corridor of the combined Oregon, 

California, Mormon Pioneer, and Pony Express Trails. Government 

maps of the route published in 1843 and 1845 gave others the 

confidence to set out for the West. Within a few years, a rising stream 

of emigrant wagons had beat the old “fur trace” into a road that the 

greenest tenderfoot could follow.

To all of my acquaintances 

and friends who may 

be in bad health I would 

recommend a trip to 

California.

— John Bidwell, 1841 

California emigration
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Wyoming

“Old Fort John,” renamed later as Fort Laramie, by William Henry Jackson. Image is 

courtesy of Scotts Bluff Nat’l. Monument.

APPROACHING THE ROCKIES

Most emigrants agreed that the easiest part of the overland trail was the 500-mile stretch that followed the Platte River across 

Nebraska’s prairie. The country grew rougher and the scenery more 

wonderful as the wagons rumbled up either side of the Platte’s north 

fork, past Chimney Rock and Scotts Bluff, and into Wyoming. In the 

vicinity of today’s town of Lingle, the trail crossed an undistinguished 

grassy flat where an 1854 shootout between Sioux and soldiers—the 

Grattan Fight—would unleash the bloody Plains Wars. A shallow 

mass grave and grisly artifacts marked the battle site for the 

continuing emigration.

By the time travelers reached that sober milestone, they had been 

six to eight weeks on the trail. Their enthusiasm for wayside points 

of interest was dampened by the weary rhythm of the road: rise 

before dawn, cook, clean up, repack, gather and yoke the oxen...and 

then plod through the dust all day to set up another camp about 

12-15 miles up the road. Fort Laramie, 50 miles west of Scotts Bluff, 

Nebraska, provided a welcome break from the tedium.

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In 1841, when the Bidwell-Bartleson Party stopped in for a twoday layover, the fort (then called Fort John) was a simple adobe 

trading post bustling with fur traders, trappers, Plains Indians, 

and adventurers. Eight years later, the U.S. Army purchased the 

establishment for a military post to protect and help re-supply the 

ever-increasing overland traffic. Fort Laramie soon grew into a busy 

community of soldiers, army wives, laundresses, children, servants, 

and quartermaster employees. Teepee encampments settled in 

around the fort, which became a multi-ethnic “travel plaza” on the 

overland highway. There, emigrants could post their mail, repair 

wagons, shoe livestock, and shop for necessities (and liquor) at the 

post sutler’s store. They also could visit and trade with the fort’s 

Indian residents — a thrill that many emigrants recorded in their trail 

journals.

Many of these [Sioux] women, 

for regularity of features and 

symmetry of figure, would 

bear off the palm of beauty 

from some of our most 

celebrated belles.... The men 

are powerfully made, and 

possess a masculine beauty 

which I have never seen 

excelled.

— Edwin Bryant, 1846 

California emigration

I remember with what terror 

I saw the Indians come out 

from Fort Laramie. They 

looked so naked and wild. The 

men got out their guns but all 

the Indians wanted was to see 

us to see if we would give them 

anything.

— Lucy Ann Henderson 

Deady on crossing the trail at 

age 11, 1846 Oregon emigration 

We were visited...by about 

two hundred Cheyennes and 

Sioux, who danced a little, 

stole a little, eat a great deal, 

and finally went on their way 

rejoicing.

— “Nebraska,” 

anonymous newspaper 

correspondent at Fort Laramie, 

1849
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

Most travelers approached Fort Laramie from the main Oregon and 

California roads along the south bank of the North Platte River. This 

required fording a tributary, the Laramie River, just east of the fort. 

Today, dams have tamed the Laramie, but in the mid-1800s the river’s 

spring current sometimes toppled wagons and drowned emigrants 

and livestock. Looking for the safest places to ford, travelers used at 

least nine different crossings of the Laramie, and bridges and ferries 

eventually served some locations.

In the early years of the emigration, the terrain on the north side 

of the river was thought to be impassable west of Fort Laramie. 

Mormon emigrants and others entering Wyoming on the north-bank 

road were forced to ford the deep, swift North Platte near the fort. 

Starting in 1850, north-side emigrants had the option of loading their 

wagons onto a ramshackle flatboat and pulling the contraption along 

a rope stretched across the river — unassisted, and at the outrageous 

fare of $1 per wagon. The price of passage drove some offended 

emigrants to blaze a new trail, Child’s Cutoff (also called Chiles’s 

Route), which continued west on the north side of the river. Travelers 

who stayed on the north bank via Child’s Cutoff could avoid crossing 

the North Platte altogether, while those following the original southbank road had to cross upstream, near today’s city of Casper. By 

1852, most wagons arriving on the north side continued up Child’s 

Cutoff, though many travelers still crossed the river to visit Fort 

Laramie. A graceful iron military bridge, built in 1875, still spans one 

of four emigrant crossings of the North Platte near the fort. Sparkling 

placidly beneath the bridge, the river strikes today’s summertime 

visitor as a mere pleasant wade, unlike the fearsome mountain torrent 

of 150 years ago. 

For travelers north or south of the river, Fort Laramie was a major 

milestone, sitting at the edge of the western plains where the land 

begins to lift toward the slopes of the Rockies. West of the fort rose 

the blue-gray beacon of Laramie Peak, looking “like a dark cloud 

on the western horizon,” according to John Bidwell. The steepest, 

roughest, driest, and most dangerous stretches of road lay ahead. 

Travelers paused to lighten their wagons by selling unnecessary 

items—tools, books, clothing, furnishings, even wagons and 

food—at Fort Laramie, but buyers were scarce. Most disappointed 

sellers simply destroyed or dumped their possessions along the trail 

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Pioneer emigrant signatures etched 

in the soft sandstone of Register 

Cliff.

10

and moved on. Forty-niner J. Goldsborough Bruff saw “bacon in 

great piles, many chords [cords] of it” and a “diving bell and all the 

apparatus” among the items abandoned in the Wyoming dust.

On the road from the fort.... I 

saw a wagon—tolerable good 

but heavy—bacon, beans, 

stoves, chairs, iron wedges, 

crow bar, soap, lead, ovens 

and many other articles all 

laying about in the prairie. 

They could not use them and 

they could not carry them, 

and the only alternative was 

to leave them.

— Israel F. Hale, 1849 

California emigration

Merchandise that in the States 

has cost thousands upon 

thousands is thus disposed of 

by sufferers whose life is still of 

the most value.

— Edward C. Harrow, 

1849 California emigration

Wagons are worth nothing. 

We frequently cook our 

suppers with the spokes of a 

better wagon than half the 

farmers in St. Louis county 

own.

— “R.H.D.,” newspaper 

correspondent, 10 miles west of 

Fort Laramie, 1859

Ten miles northwest of the army post, travelers on the south side of 

the river reached their next campsite, called Sand Point, near today’s 

Guernsey, Wyoming. (In 1860-61, the Centre Star Pony Express 

station was located there, too.) Some paused between endless camp 

chores to carve their names into the soft stone face of Register Cliff. 
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

A few miles beyond, the wagons fell into single file for a hard pull 

up a rock ridge, avoiding boggy ground nearer the river. Thousands 

of iron-shod hooves and wagon wheels gradually cut a verticalwalled channel deep into the stone there, at a site now known as the 

Guernsey Ruts, or Deep Hill Ruts.

The trails followed the arc of the North Platte River deep into central 

Wyoming. Once wagons started taking Child’s Cutoff, profit-minded 

men established toll bridges and ferries at several locations between 

Fort Laramie and today’s city of Casper. These allowed wagons 

to zigzag back and forth across the river to avoid sand hills and 

other difficult spots. At Casper the river curved southwest across 

the emigrant route, forcing those on the south side to make a final 

crossing there or a few miles farther west near Red Buttes (now called 

Bessemer Bend).

And that was the end of the Platte River lifeline that had conducted 

the emigration across hundreds of miles of prairie and plain. Now the 

need for water and grass would become a nagging worry.

A short distance beyond the last crossing of the North Platte at Red 

Buttes, all the trails came together for the hot, hard haul over Devil’s 

Backbone (also called Avenue of Rocks) to the next good water at 

11

It is considered by all to be 

the worst camping ground 

we had had on the journey. 

Its banks are so perfectly soft 

that a horse or ox cannot get 

down to drink without sinking 

immediately nearly overhead 

in thick, filthy mud, and [it] 

is one of the most horrid, 

swampy, stinking places I ever 

saw.

— William Clayton on 

Clayton’s Slough, 1847 Mormon 

emigration

. . . but oh my poor pony . . . 

no grass no grass . . . but he 

is a fine fellow & deserves a 

better fate than to starve.

— Charles B. Darwin at 

Willow Spring, 1849 California 

emigration
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Willow Spring. Along this stretch, travelers on all the trail variants and 

cutoffs of the Oregon, California, and Mormon Pioneer trails merged 

for the first time onto the same road. Now their teams faced a long 

pull up Prospect Hill, where wagon wheels wore multiple ruts and 

swales that still are visible. Two miles farther was the next watering 

hole for the thirsty oxen: an odorous alkali marsh called Clayton’s 

Slough, jokingly named after an 1847 Mormon pioneer who had 

nothing good to say about the place. Hardworking oxen (and people) 

that drank too deeply of alkaline water often died of digestive upsets 

and dehydration. Good water was available about four miles farther 

west at Horse Creek, where a Pony Express station stood in the 1860s. 

From there the road stretched another 10 dry miles to the Sweetwater 

River. Grass was scarce all along the route.

This leg of the trip, Emigrant Gap (today sometimes called the Poison 

Spider Route), was a bitter introduction to what lay ahead: long 

stretches of hot, hilly trail with little feed for the animals, punctuated 

with stinking, toxic alkali waterholes. That poisonous 30-mile stretch 

between the North Platte and lovely Sweetwater Valley would kill 

many an ox and emigrant through the overland trail years.

All the air is strongly 

impregnated with effluvia 

from dead oxen it is like 

walking over a field of battle 

after three hot suns have 

[beat] upon the thousand 

dead. 

— Charles B. Darwin on 

the Emigrant Gap segment, 1849 

California emigration

Here [at Poison Slough, 

west of Willow Spring] are 

the graves of some five or 

six persons who drank of 

the water and died in a few 

minutes. Notices are stuck 

over the graves and at the 

road side... “He drank of this 

water and died.” “Drank at 

this spring and died.” “This 

water is poison.” “Death!” 

“Poison!” “Beware! For 

God’s sake do not taste this 

water! Happy is the man who 

can read!”

— James W. Evans, 1850 

emigration
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

SWEETWATER TO SOUTH PASS 

The great granite loaf of Independence Rock signaled temporary relief from the thirsty barrens, for it stands where the emigrant 

trail meets the Sweetwater River. Trail tradition held that reaching 

this milestone by the Fourth of July meant the emigrants would arrive 

safely in Oregon or California before early blizzards blew. People 

often paused here to rest their livestock and explore the formation, 

probably the most famous landmark on the combined Oregon, 

California, Mormon Pioneer, and Pony Express routes. Many 

travelers chiseled or painted their names on the outcrop, turning 

Independence Rock into a permanent memorial to the passing 

emigration.

13

Came to independence rock 

about ten o clock this morning 

I presume there are a million 

of names wrote on this rock 

— Lydia Allen Rudd, 

1852 Oregon emigration

Names! Names! Are every 

where upon its surface to be 

seen. names of the young 

& the old, of the man & his 

gentle mate, of the learned 

traveler & the yellow ideaed 

gold hunter.

— Charles B. Darwin, 

1849 California emigration

“Independence Rock,” by William Henry Jackson. Image is courtesy of Scotts Bluff Nat’l. 

Monument.
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Wyoming

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Independence Rock also marked the beginning of South Pass, for 

the pass was not just the single point where the trail crested the 

Continental Divide. It was, in the minds of emigrants, the entire 100-

mile climb up the Sweetwater to the divide. Emigrants and oxen on 

this uphill stretch would have good water—and lots of it, as they would 

cross the cold, meandering Sweetwater nine times. Even here, though, 

in peak emigration years, grass was scarce and livestock went hungry. 

People, as well, suffered along this stretch of trail. In the Sweetwater 

Valley, many travelers began taking sick with a mysterious, aching 

ailment they called “mountain fever.” They blamed their illness on 

mosquitoes, altitude, and the alkali dust, but doctors today think it 

was a tick-borne disease such as Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. 

And as they climbed toward the mountain pass, emigrants regretted 

having abandoned warm bedding and clothing along the trail. High 

elevations can bring chilly summertime winds, freezing nighttime 

temperatures, and the threat of snowstorm in July. In fact, weather 

in this mountain country has been known to deliver disaster to the 

unprepared. In 1856, an October blizzard trapped four late-departing 

Mormon handcart and wagon companies, with nearly 1,400 men, 

women, and children among them, in the Sweetwater Valley. Despite 

the heroic efforts of rescuers from Salt Lake City, many of the 

emigrants —historians’ counts range from about 170 to over 300 

— did not survive the ordeal.

Sweetwater Valley near Devil’s Gate, Wyoming.
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Wyoming

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Mountain-rimmed Sweetwater Valley can be cold and merciless, but 

it is also a place of sublime natural beauty. Despite the hazards they 

faced there, some awestruck 19th century emigrants paused to write 

poetically of this segment of trail.

The Sweet Water flows 

through the flat below us 

in many a graceful curve, 

looking like a huge serpentine 

silver thread in the rich 

emerald green. Before us, 

behind us, all around us, 

are mountains piled on 

mountains....

— Nellie Phelps, 1859 

California emigration 

I had many pleasing 

reflections while traveling 

alone in this sequestered 

and remote part of the earth 

where the footprints of a 

white man is seldom seen and 

all nature appears as though 

nothing had been molested 

since it rolled out of the Hands 

of the Creator.

— Henry Lunt, 1857 

Utah emigration

As they trekked up the Sweetwater Valley, travelers passed several 

notable trail milestones. First was Devil’s Gate, a natural curiosity 

that puzzled many an emigrant: what caused the Sweetwater River to 

chew a channel through the ridge instead of flowing around it? Then 

came Split Rock, a “gun-sight” notch in the Rattlesnake Range that 

aimed travelers directly toward South Pass, some 75 miles distant. At 

Ice Slough, astonished emigrants dug clear, sweet ice—a treat!—from 

beneath the turf in mid-summer. Barren, wind-slapped Rocky Ridge, 

a 700-foot climb through broken rock, was always an ordeal for 

wagons and teams, and particularly so for Mormon emigrants pulling 

loaded handcarts. Finally, the trail threaded between Twin Mounds, 

two low hills that marked the final approach to the Continental 

Divide. Through the years of the emigration, this Sweetwater-toSouth Pass stretch also became dotted with trading posts, Indian and 

army encampments, and Pony Express, stage, and telegraph stations.
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Wyoming

Devil’s Gate on the Sweetwater River, Wyoming.

16

To the northwest bared the ferocious, snow-covered sawteeth of the 

Wind River Range, which fretted many an emigrant. It was needless 

worry, as the trail passed south of the Wind Rivers, not through them. 

The grade up and over South Pass, about 7,550 feet in elevation, is so 

gradual and mild that most travelers never knew exactly when they 

crossed the Continental Divide. In his journal entry of July 18, 1841, 

John Bidwell noted casually, “Crossed the divide which separates the 

water of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.”

Came to the Ice Springs, which 

certainly are remarkable...in 

cutting through a wet grassy 

strip, we came to solid ice, 

which was eagerly gathered 

and eaten by our delighted 

and astonished selves. Some 

Doubted its being ice,—but 

it looked like ice, smelt like 

ice, tasted like ice, felt like ice, 

and—I believe it was ice.

— Nellie Phelps, 1859 

California emigration
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Wyoming

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There we saw the far famed 

south pass, but did not see 

it until we had passed it for 

I was all the time looking 

for some narrow place that 

would almost take your 

breath away to get through 

but was disappointed.

— Amelia Hadley, 1851 

Oregon emigration

What is called the Pass in 

the Rocky Mountains is not 

as most persons suppose, a 

narrow passway through 

frightful over-hanging 

mountains with wild streams 

dashing down their acclivities, 

but on the contrary it is a 

scarcely perceptible ascent, 

and when the summit is 

reached the traveller is not 

aware of it and frequently 

asks where is the Pass?

— William A. Carter, 

sutler at Fort Bridger, 1857

The long-anticipated crossing of the Great Divide was a letdown! But 

travelers to Oregon and California were still less than halfway through 

their journey. More serious challenges lay ahead.

South Pass still looks much as it did during covered wagon days.
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Wyoming

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BEYOND THE GREAT DIVIDE 

After sharing a common broad corridor through Nebraska and Wyoming, overland traffic burst up and over the Continental 

Divide like spray from a hose. Three main trunk routes, linked by a 

snarl of alternative cutoffs, fanned out across western Wyoming: the 

Lander Road, the Sublette Cutoff, and the Fort Bridger route.

The Lander Road, the only wagon road in the overland trail system 

built with federal funds, was the last of the three routes to be opened. 

Frederick W. Lander, a government engineer with the Department 

of the Interior, surveyed and built the road in 1857-59 to improve 

transportation to the western states. Lander saw that many travel 

problems, including the suffering of the oxen, arose from “the extreme 

dryness and heat of the artemisian [sagebrush] deserts,” so he routed 

his cutoff on the northern side of South Pass through cooler, higher 

areas with more grass and water. The Lander Road forked off the 

main trail at the ninth crossing of the Sweetwater, just east of the 

Continental Divide, and angled northwest. It crested the divide 

north of today’s Highway 28, entered Idaho west of today’s Auburn, 

Wyoming, and rejoined the main Oregon and California road near 

Fort Hall, Idaho. This northerly route stayed well clear of Utah, where 

troubles were then brewing between the federal government and the 

Mormon followers of Brigham Young. For awhile, though, the Lander 

Road was a preferred stalking ground of “white Indians” —white 

men disguised as Indians— who lured emigrant families away from 

the main road and cruelly murdered them for their belongings. White 

criminals were responsible for several particularly brutal incidents on 

the Lander after it opened in 1859.

The main trail on the southern side of South Pass headed toward the 

bright green marsh of Pacific Springs, just west of the Continental 

Divide. Cattle would mire themselves at this swampy campsite if their 

owners did not take care, but Pacific Springs provided the last good 

water and abundant feed they would find for a couple of days. From 

here travelers entered a grassless, gray-green ocean of sagebrush, 

starvation country for the weary oxen. Next water was about 10 miles 

ahead at Dry Sandy Crossing, a miserable spot where alkali pools 

fatally poisoned several oxen belonging to the Donner-Reed Party 
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

19

in 1846. Loss of those animals contributed to their problems farther 

down the trail.

About 20 miles west of the Continental Divide, the main road 

forked at a spot called Parting of the Ways—a point of decision. 

From there, travelers could either follow the Lander Road, or 

the Sublette Cutoff heading due west toward the trading post at 

Fort Hall, or take the original, better-watered route southwest 

toward Fort Bridger and Utah.

The descent on the western 

slope is more gradual than on 

the East spreading out into a 

vast desert plain covered with 

sage, which gives it more the 

character of sterility than if it 

had no vegetation at all upon 

it.

— William A. Carter, 

sutler at Fort Bridger, 1857 

Avoid this place, poison in the 

water that stands in pools at 

the [Dry Sandy] Crossing.

— James Frazier Reed of 

the Donner-Reed Party, 1846 

California emigration

You have no idea of the 

confusion and uncertainty in 

the minds of the emigrants as 

to which was the best route 

to take....Some said you had 

to buy the land in California 

while in Oregon it was free....

Some advised us to take the 

short cut across the 45-mile 

desert, avoiding going to Fort 

Bridger.

— Lucy Ann 

Henderson Deady on 

crossing the trail at age 11, 

1846 Oregon emigration
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

20

The Sublette (also called the Greenwood-Sublette Cutoff) was blazed 

in 1844. Until the Lander Road opened 15 years later, most emigrants 

to California and Oregon chose the Sublette Cutoff because it was 

about two days faster than the Fort Bridger route. But the Sublette 

Cutoff crossed 45 miles of pitiless desert between the Big Sandy 

River and Green River. Emigrants filled up every container (not the 

big barrels of folklore, though—nobody lugged heavy barrels across 

the country) at the Big Sandy and started toward the Little Colorado 

Desert in the cool of the evening. Dawn would catch them with many 

The country was in most 

places so perfectly destitute 

of all vegetation, that it is 

doubtful whether even a 

cricket could live in such a 

desert.... During the day 

I gave to each of the oxen 

one quart of water, and two 

quarts to one that seemed to 

suffer most.

— J. Quinn Thornton on 

the Sublette Cutoff, 1846 Oregon 

emigration

My heart aches at the thought 

of leaving these noble animals 

behind. They have been so 

brave and uncomplaining, all 

through this heart-breaking 

trip. Their staring eyes, 

their moans at night, and 

their gaunt bodies haunt me 

continually. It is almost more 

than I can bear.

— Esther Belle Hanna 

on leaving oxen on the Sublette 

Cutoff, 1852 Oregon emigration
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

21

Nothing for the stock to eat. As far as the eye can reach it is nothing 

but a sandy desert and the road is strewn with dead cattle, and the 

stench is awful. One of our best oxen is too lame to travel.... Have to 

yoke up our muleycow in the ox’s place.

— Amelia Stewart Knight on the road to Fort Bridger, 1853 

Oregon emigration

burning miles yet to go. Once over the desert, travelers still had to 

cross the dangerous Green River, said to claim a life a day, and climb 

several ridges. Some of the ridges are over 8,000 feet in elevation 

— higher than South Pass. The Sublette was the shorter way, but it 

was an ox-killer.

The Fort Bridger road was dry and torturous, too, but at least the 

cattle could water at the Big Sandy at the end of each day. This was the 

original Oregon-California route, which continued southwest from 

Parting of the Ways, paralleled the Big Sandy River to the Green River 

crossings, and went on to Blacks Fork and Fort Bridger.

Fort Bridger, built by mountain men Jim Bridger and Louis Vasquez 

as a trading post in 1843, was another place of decision for emigrants. 

They could pause at the fort to rest and re-supply, and then turn 

northwest again and rejoin the Sublette and Lander Road traffic east 

of Fort Hall. Or, after 1846, those bound for Utah and California 
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

“Mormons Nearing Fort Bridger,” by William Henry Jackson. Image is courtesy of Scotts 

Bluff Nat’l. Monument.

22

could continue southwest from Fort Bridger on the Hastings Cutoff, 

named for California promoter Lansford W. Hastings. This was the 

infamous “shortcut” that the Donner-Reed Party painfully punched 

through the Wasatch Range, into the Salt Lake valley, and across the 

Great Salt Desert. For them, the Hastings Cutoff was a shortcut to 

disaster.

For others, it was a blessing. The very next summer, Brigham Young 

and his followers took that same hard-won track out of Fort Bridger 

toward the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. 
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

23

LEAPFROGGING ACROSS WYOMING

After suffering years of violent conflict in Missouri and Illinois, leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 

(Mormons) planned an organized exodus of their people over the 

Rocky Mountains. Brigham Young led the first phase of the Mormon 

emigration from Nauvoo, Illinois, to Winter Quarters (Omaha), 

Nebraska, in 1846. Following a hard prairie winter that took many 

lives, Young started across Nebraska in April 1847 with an advance 

group of 143 men, three women, and two children. They were 

heading to the Great Basin, a region then controlled by Mexico, to 

prepare a safe refuge for their church and its people.

To avoid more trouble—particularly with old enemies from Missouri 

who were moving to the Oregon Country—Young kept his followers 

on the north side of the Platte River, away from the main emigration 

on the south bank. Even so, their movement up the Platte ignited 

rumors that the Mormons were robbing other emigrants and inciting 

Indian attacks.

Brigham Young must have 

worried about what lay ahead, 

beyond the Fort Laramie 

crossing. The Mormons would 

have to cross the North Platte 

there and merge with the Oregon 

and California traffic. Sure 

enough, when Young and his 

pioneers arrived at Fort Laramie 

on June 2nd they learned there 

was an express company of 20 

emigrant wagons from Missouri, 

Iowa, and Illinois coming up 

the south bank just three miles 

distant. Another 600 to 700 wagons were on the way.

These emigrants were from two states that had violently expelled the 

Mormons—and their large wagon trains would compete for grass, 

water, campsites, and priority at river crossings. The Latter-day Saints 

had to stay in front, and the competition lit a fire under them. Young 

We could not get any kind of 

accommodations if we were 

[thought] to be Mormons. 

Some would tell us the 

Mormons will rob you before 

you get half way through; but 

we are not afraid of them. We 

tell them there is a great deal 

done on their credit.

— Phoebe Stanton, 1847 

Oregon emigration
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

24

sent out a road crew to clear the road ahead so that his wagons could 

move more quickly, and they started averaging 16 1⁄2 miles a day.

About four days west of Fort Laramie, mountain men told the 

Mormons of a big leather boat they had stowed up ahead at the last 

crossing of the North Platte, and invited Young’s party to use it if they 

could find it before the “Missourians.” Young sent 19 wagons express 

to the crossing. They arrived and claimed the mountaineers’ boat just 

two hours ahead of the competition. More Oregon emigrants were 

not far behind, and the main Mormon party was on its way, too. But 

the North Platte was raging that spring, 100 yards wide and some 15 

feet deep. Neither the Mormons nor the Missourians could cross 

quickly, each group was leery of the other, and the setting was ripe 

for trouble. Instead of fighting, though, they worked out a deal: the 

Mormon crew used the mountaineers’ boat and one of their own to 

ferry the Oregon-bound vanguard over the river, in return for a fee 

paid in flour. Everybody was happy—for the moment.

The next afternoon a thunderstorm added more runoff to the swollen 

torrent. Brigham Young set a team to building a cottonwood ferry 

large enough carry two loaded wagons with teams across the current, 

and they rafted the entire Mormon party over the North Platte. 

Meanwhile, wagons from Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois continued 

arriving. Young left behind a small crew of ferrymen to earn money 

helping those emigrants across. Initially suspicious of each other, 

the Mormon men and their 

customers soon set aside their 

differences, helped each other 

out, and even shared meals and 

friendly conversation.

From the crossing, long known 

as Mormon Ferry, Brigham 

Young’s company struck 

out overland and spent an 

uncomfortable night at Clayton’s 

Slough. Now, though, the 

Latter-day Saints were crowding 

some of the Missourians they 

had helped back at the river. 

When the [Mormon] brethren 

first commenced ferrying for 

[the Missourians], they were 

armed with Bowie Knives & 

Pistols, but before the brethren 

had finished their work the 

men had put them all away 

and having put away their 

fears also, were very civil and 

kind....

— Thomas Bullock, 1847 

Mormon emigration
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

25

Mormon pioneer William Clayton complained that men from the 

other wagon train appeared along the trail disguised as Indians to 

scare the Mormons away from a good campsite they did not want 

to share. With goodwill now clearly out of play, Mormons and 

Missourians leapfrogged each other all the way up the Sweetwater 

Valley and over South Pass.

West of the Great Divide, the Latter-day Saints met Jim Bridger on 

the trail and asked the mountain man if the Salt Lake region would 

support settlement and agriculture. In a rambling response, Bridger 

allowed that the area south of the Great Salt Lake had good soil, 

clover for the livestock, and timber, fish, and minerals. On the other 

hand, he cautioned, the valley was subject to “excessive cold nights” 

and frost, and might not be suitable for growing corn enough to 

support a settled population. The mountain man would surely like 

to know, himself, if it could be done. In fact, Bridger told the pioneer 

band he would give $1,000 to know that an ear of corn could be 

raised in the Salt Lake Valley.

And if the Mormons cared to accept the challenge, Bridger observed, 

they could follow the Donner-Reed track from Fort Bridger to the 

Valley of the Great Salt Lake.

Once the Mormon pioneers turned off the Oregon Trail at Fort 

Bridger and started southward on the Hastings Cutoff, their race with 

the Missourians was ended. But their difficulties were not over: near 

today’s Wyoming-Utah border, 

Brigham Young fell deathly ill. 

Mountain fever had plagued the 

company since South Pass, and 

Young was its latest miserable 

victim. Not wanting to halt 

the company’s progress, he 

ordered several scouts to ride 

ahead and sent the main wagon 

company along after them. A 

few companions stayed in camp 

for three days to nurse Young, 

who was suffering high fever, 

pain in his limbs, and wracking 

There are some in camp who 

are getting discouraged about 

the looks of the country, but 

thinking minds are not much 

disappointed and we have no 

doubt of finding a place where 

the Saints can live, which is all 

we ought to ask or expect.

— William Clayton 

on the Hastings Cutoff, 1847 

Mormon emigration
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

26

chills. As he lay in his trailside sickbed, his people entered their 

Promised Land without him. But the Mormon leader arrived a few 

days later, ending the 111-day trek from Winter Quarters to the Valley 

of the Great Salt Lake on July 24, 1847. Another 2,200 Latter-day 

Saints were even then on their way to help establish an independent, 

church-governed commonwealth—and to show Jim Bridger that the 

Salt Lake Valley could, indeed, support settlement.

Barely five months after the Saints’ arrival, sharp eyes discovered 

gold at Sutter’s Mill in California. A month after that, Mexico gave up 

the Southwest and Great Basin, including Utah, to the United States. 

Within three years, the proposed Mormon State of Deseret would 

become Utah Territory, with Brigham Young appointed as territorial 

governor.

Latter-day Saints who had fled the U.S. were once again part of it, 

and they had built their busy new capital right on the treasure road to 

California.

“Fort Bridger on the Black’s Fork of the Green River,” explorer Jim Bridger’s trading 

post. Image is courtesy of Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Collection, Yale University.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

27

HO FOR CALIFORNIA! \ OREGON OR BUST!

Between 1840 and 1848, fewer than 15,000 emigrants crossed the 

plains for the west coast, and most of them were bound for the 

Oregon Country (which included today’s Washington and Idaho). 

But traffic exploded in 1849 as some 25,000 adventurers headed west 

to find their fortune in the California gold fields. Only 450 set out for 

Oregon that year.

The next spring, 50,000 travelers hit the road, and 44,000 of those 

were going to California. Overland traffic peaked in 1852, when 

60,000 men, women, and children started for the west coast —and 

another 10,000 Mormon converts joined them on the road across 

Wyoming.

Picture it: 50,000 to 70,000 souls, an endless caravan of white-topped 

wagons, countless braying and bawling livestock, all swarming up 

the road in a moving, mooing mob. It was a rolling disaster. Finding 

no grass along the way, starving oxen dropped dead in the road and 

On all sides I see multi­tudes 

of people, wagons, cattle and 

horses at all times throng the 

way. The road, from morning 

till night, is crowded like Pearl 

Street or Broadway. In the 

evening, fires are seen in all 

directions, gleaming from a 

city of white tents.

— Franklin Langworthy 

at South Pass, 1850 California 

emigration

“Over South Pass along the Wind River Range,” by William Henry Jackson. Image is 

courtesy of the Denver Public Library, Western History Collection.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

28

rotted there. Wagon traffic often waited for days at fords, ferries, 

and bridges, awaiting a turn to cross. Crowded campsites, filthy with 

garbage and human waste, buzzed with flies, gnats, and mosquitoes. 

Abandoned possessions littered the roadside. Worst was the sickness 

that often followed such camps. Asiatic cholera chased the emigrants 

along a thousand miles of trail, from the “jumping off places” on the 

Missouri River all the way to Fort Laramie. Cholera, unknowingly 

spread through contaminated water by infected emigrants as they 

moved from campsite to campsite, claimed thousands of lives during 

the Gold Rush years. Based on emigrant reports of deaths from 

disease, accident, and violence, historians estimate that the number 

of graves averaged 10 per mile along the 2,000 miles of trail by the end 

of the emigration era.

The gold rush created friction between Mormon settlers and the 

overlanders who poured through Salt Lake City on their way West. 

While many travelers enjoyed their layover in the Mormon capital, 

others complained of unfair fines and nuisance lawsuits filed against 

them as they passed through Utah Territory. More significantly, 

federal officials serving in Utah found themselves increasingly in 

conflict with Utah’s Mormon-dominated government. Over a sixyear period, those officials filed dozens of letters and reports that 

variously accused the Mormons of treason, harassment, unlawful 

imprisonment of non-Mormons, preferential court treatment of 

Mormons, incitement of Indians against the U.S., and even several 

murders.

In response to these charges, and without notifying Acting Territorial 

Governor Brigham Young, U.S. President James Buchanan in 1857 

sent U.S. troops to replace Young with a non-Mormon appointee. 

News of the army on the march inflamed the Latter-day Saints, who 

had been driven at gunpoint from Missouri and Illinois not many 

years earlier. Governor Young declared martial law, severed East 

The road from Independence 

to Fort Laramie is a 

graveyard.

— Dr. T. McCollum, 

1849 California emigration

Any man who makes a trip by 

land to California deserves to 

find a fortune.

— Alonzo Delano, 1849 

California emigration
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

“Indians on the 

Wagon Trail,” 

by Charles M. 

Russell. Image 

is courtesy of 

the Beinecke 

Rare Books & 

Manuscript 

Library , Yale 

University.

from West by closing the California Road, and prepared the Utah 

Territorial Militia to resist the coming “invasion.” The Utah militia 

harassed approaching U.S. troops and burned down the supply 

post at Fort Bridger (which Young had purchased from Bridger and 

Vasquez) to make it useless to the army. Militiamen also destroyed 

a military supply train at Simpson’s Hollow, near today’s Granger, 

Wyoming, destroyed a second supply train west of Farson, and ran off 

a thousand head of government cattle. U.S. troops spent a miserable 

winter camped near the ruins of Fort Bridger. By spring, both sides 

stepped back from civil war, and a new territorial governor was 

installed with the consent of Brigham Young—who still wielded the 

real power in Utah. The little-known “Utah War” was quickly over, 

but the threat of armed conflict had stifled overland emigration for a 

time. The lure of the West was strong and traffic quickly resumed on 

the California Road.

Other conflicts along the trail were not so easily resolved. Sioux, 

Cheyenne, and other native peoples along the “white man’s Medicine 

Road” at first were mostly curious about the passing emigration, 

but became horrified by what they saw during the gold rush years. 

Emigrant livestock ate up the grass that Indian ponies needed to 

survive. Emigrant axes cut down stands of timber that sheltered 

Indian teepees and fed their winter campfires. Emigrant rifles took 

the buffalo, American soldiers and settlers took the land, and white 

man’s diseases took Indian lives. Where the two cultures rubbed 

together, there was heat. Soon there would be fire.

29
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

“Planning the Attack,” by Charles M. Russell. Image is courtesy of the Beinecke Rare 

Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University.

FIRE ON THE PLAINS

Travelers mostly met members of the Lakota (Sioux), Cheyenne, 

Arapaho, Absaroka, and Shoshone nations along the overland 

roads through Wyoming—and most of those encounters were 

peaceful. Emigrants and Indians enjoyed observing each other’s 

strange dress and behavior, trading goods, and sharing meals. But 

relations soured as wagon traffic surged and buffalo herds dwindled.

Wild foods, grass, and timber are not scattered evenly across the 

plains, but cluster near water. Plains people needed those limited 

resources to survive the winter; emigrants needed them, too, while 

crossing the plains in summer. Native people tried to keep emigrants’ 

cattle out of their pony pastures and demanded payment for the 

grass, game, wood, and water the pioneers used up. Figuring they 

had equal rights to nature’s unfenced bounty, most pioneers refused 

to “pay tribute” to the tribes. Insulted warriors resorted first to 

petty pilfering, then to livestock raids and armed face-offs with the 

emigrants. Travelers, in turn, resented Indian harassment, and rumors 

of wagon train massacres made them fearful and trigger-happy. A few 

simply assumed any approaching Indian people were up to no good, 

30
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

and shot them on sight. The victims’ relatives avenged those deaths 

on the next emigrant straggler. A low level of give-and-take conflict 

underlay tense but generally nonviolent relations between Indians 

and emigrants.

To keep those tensions from exploding into open warfare, the U.S. 

government called for a treaty conference to be held near Fort 

Laramie in September 1851. More than 10,000 members of eleven 

different Northern Plains tribes gathered at Horse Creek, about 

30 miles southeast of the fort, to join in the “Great Smoke.” Over 

the next few weeks, native leaders and government representatives 

pounded out an agreement, the Fort Laramie (or Horse Creek) Treaty 

of 1851. Under the terms of the treaty, the U.S. government promised 

to give the tribes annual payments of “merchandise, domestic 

animals, and agricultural implements” for the loss of their resources. 

In turn, the tribes agreed to let emigrants pass in peace and to seek 

peace among themselves. 

The long-term peace was shattered just three years later. In August 

1854, a lame cow from a passing emigrant train strayed into a Brule 

Sioux encampment about eight miles east of Fort Laramie. The Sioux 

were hungry and tired of waiting for their overdue treaty provisions, 

so they slaughtered and ate the beef. The cow’s owner, a Danish 

emigrant on his way to Utah, lodged a complaint at Fort Laramie 

later that day. He stubbornly rejected all offers of payment for his lost 

animal, but demanded that the offenders be punished.

Lieutenant John Grattan, an inexperienced young officer with a 

prickly sense of honor, led a detachment of soldiers into the Indian 

camp to make an arrest for the 

theft of the cow. Drunken taunts 

from Grattan’s interpreter, a 

local trader, aggravated the tense 

standoff between soldiers and 

warriors. For reasons still unclear, 

a nervous trooper fired his 

weapon, bringing down a hail of 

arrows from the furious Lakota. The fight wiped out Lt. Grattan’s 31-

man command, killed the respected Brule leader Conquering Bear, 

and destroyed the fragile peace along the overland trails.

31

It will be an expensive cow.

— Senator Sam Houston 

as U.S. prepares for war against 

the Plains Indians, 1855
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

A year later, U.S. Army troops under General William Harney 

punished the Sioux for Grattan’s defeat by destroying Little 

Thunder’s Brule village in western Nebraska. That and other heavyhanded military actions against the Plains Indians over the next 

several years launched a cycle of attacks and counter-attacks known 

as the Plains Wars. The Sioux and their allies, the Arapaho and 

Cheyenne, struck settlements, forts, railroad and telegraph lines, 

army posts, and isolated homesteads and stage stations across the 

plains through the 1860s. In Wyoming, Shoshones and Bannocks 

disrupted the overland trail in March 1862 by attacking every stage, 

mail, and telegraph station between Platte Bridge Station (later 

renamed Fort Caspar—today’s City of Casper) and northern Utah. 

Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho fighters struck the Platte Bridge 

Station in July 1865, hoping to destroy the bridge and sever the 

overland road. On the same day near Red Buttes, several miles west 

of Platte Bridge Station, the combined Indian forces wiped out a 

government supply train approaching from the west. They resisted 

further trespass into Sioux and Cheyenne territory by killing travelers 

on the branch roads to the newly opened gold fields in Montana and 

Colorado.

Emigrants on the overland trails naturally were increasingly fearful 

of Indians during the years of the Plains Wars, although most 

encounters remained nonviolent. Meanwhile, game grew scarcer and 

the situation more desperate for the proud Plains nations. To some 

32

At night we placed our 

weapons of defense by the 

sides of our beds in our tents. 

I claimed the ax for mine, and 

always saw that it was close to 

me, but I never had occasion 

to use it on an Indian. 

— Nancy Cotton 

Zumwalt Hunt, 1854 California 

emigration

This country was once 

covered with buffalo, elk, 

deer and antelope, and we 

had plenty to eat.... But now, 

since the white man has made 

a road across our land, and 

has killed off our game, we are 

hungry, and there is nothing 

for us to eat. Our women and 

children cry for food and we 

have no food to give them.

— Chief Washakie of the 

Eastern Shoshone, 1855
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

Indian leaders, resistance seemed the best path to survival.

Others chose a different path. Chief Washakie, for example, worked 

hard to keep his Eastern Shoshone band at peace during the Plains 

Wars. He was able to do it by shifting his band’s activities away 

from the hot-zones of conflict, and by commanding the continuing 

respect of his young warriors. Chief Washakie cooperated with the 

U.S. Army against their mutual enemies, the Sioux, Arapaho, and 

Cheyenne people. While other Shoshone bands attacked travelers 

along the overland trails, his people aided emigrants and permitted 

construction of the Lander Road across their lands. The great chief 

was an admired and accomplished politician, and received from 

the federal government much of what he demanded on behalf of 

his people —including the beautiful Wind River Reservation, near 

Lander, Wyoming.

The Sioux, Arapaho, and Cheyenne people, defeated at last by the 

destruction of the great buffalo herds, were forced onto reservations 

in the 1870s. Of those three tribes, only the Northern Arapahos, 

sharing the Wind River Reservation with the Eastern Shoshones, live 

in Wyoming today.

33

Our country for 

hunting game 

has become very 

small. We see 

the white men 

everywhere; 

their rifles kill 

some of the 

game, and we 

are no longer 

able to find any 

game; our little 

children are 

crying for food.... 

We wish to live.

— Chief 

Medicine Man of the Arapaho, 1859

“The Buffalo Hunt.” Image is courtesy of theLibrary of 

Congress.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

‘GOD SPEED TO THE BOY AND THE PONY!’

Briefly skirting the Plains troubles were the tough young riders of the Pony Express. “The Pony” was launched in April 1860 and 

closed down in November 1861, shortly before the worst of the Plains 

conflicts began. 

The Pony Express was a horse-and-rider relay that carried mail east 

and west between St. Joseph, Missouri, and San Francisco, California. 

In those days, mail going to California by ship or stagecoach could 

take one to six months to arrive. For a hefty fee of $5 (about $85 per 

half-ounce in today’s money), the Pony could carry mail across half a 

continent in just ten to sixteen days, depending on weather conditions 

and the season. The Pony Express route followed the combined 

Oregon & California trail across northeastern Kansas, Nebraska, and 

most of Wyoming, but split off at Fort Bridger to take the Mormon 

road into Salt Lake City. From there, it crossed the Great Basin into 

California. Along the route were Pony Express “home stations,” 

placed 75 to 100 miles apart. Riders relayed the mail both east and 

west along their assigned segments between two home stations.

The Pony rider headed out with the mail pouch, called a mochila 

(Spanish for “knapsack,” and pronounced “mo-che-la”), as soon as 

it arrived at his home station, year-round and at any time of the night 

or day. He switched to a fresh mount at “swing,” or relay, stations 

every 10 to 15 miles along the way, leaving his tired horses in the care 

of the station-keepers. On arriving at the home station at the end of 

his run, the rider passed the mail to his relief rider for the next leg of 

the route. He then could enjoy a well-deserved meal and a bed at the 

station (which often was a stage station that served overland coach 

passengers, too) while waiting for the next inbound mochila.

Lone riders on the trail made easy targets, and although no Pony 

Express riders were killed in Wyoming during the Plains conflicts, 

they had reason to worry about the possibility. Rider Henry Avis, 

for example, reported carrying the mail west along his relay from 

Horse Creek to Horse Shoe Station, only to find his relief rider there 

afraid to leave the station for fear of the Sioux. Avis himself took the 

mochila on to Deer Creek Station, where the arriving eastbound rider 

refused to continue to Horse Shoe Station on the same stretch of 

34
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

“Rocky Ridge Pony Express Station,” by William Henry Jackson. Image is courtesy of Scotts 

Bluff Nat’l. Monument.

trail Avis had just crossed. Avis mounted up once more and carried 

the eastbound mail back to Horse Shoe, for a ride totaling 199 miles. 

Danger was far worse across western Utah and Nevada, where 

three riders were killed by Indian fighters, several narrowly escaped 

ambush, and a number of employees perished in attacks on Pony 

stations. Violence there in the Great Basin was unrelated to the Plains 

Wars but had the same causes: destruction of native food resources 

and mistreatment of Indian people along the overland trails.

During its 18-19 months of 

operation, the Pony Express 

provided a critical and fast 

link between East and West. 

Its carriers delivered to eager 

California crowds the news of 

President Buchanan’s farewell 

address, Lincoln’s election 

and inauguration, and early 

battles of the Civil War. But the 

enterprise was expensive, and 

the Pony’s struggling parent 

company, the freighting firm of Russell, Majors, & Waddell, was 

sliding rapidly toward bankruptcy. When workers completed the 

transcontinental telegraph system in October 1861, the Pony became 

obsolete. The last delivery of Pony Express mail arrived in San 

Francisco on November 20, 1861. And the end of west-bound wagon 

trains was not too far distant.

35

No danger or difficulty must 

check his speed or change his 

route, for the world is waiting 

for the news he shall fetch and 

carry.... ‘God speed to the 

boy and the pony.’

— Western Journal of 

Commerce, Kansas City, Aug. 8, 

1860
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

THE END OF THE TRAIL era

I

n its heyday, the wagon corridor across Wyoming was a buzzing 

multi-lane highway that carried traffic of all kinds both east 

and west. Emigrants and gold-seekers followed, and sometimes 

abandoned, their dreams along that highway. Bullwhackers, like 

today’s interstate truckers, used the road to haul commercial freight 

across the country. More than 70,000 Mormon converts took the 

route with handcarts and wagons to join their fellow Latter-day Saints 

in Utah. Soldiers and their supply trains followed the highway toward 

their posts in the western territories. Drovers from as far away as Texas 

pushed great herds of cattle and sheep up the road to meat-starved 

cities on the west coast. Stagecoaches with passengers and mail, Pony 

Express riders with important dispatches, surveyors, writers, artists, 

and adventurers joined other travelers on that busy corridor.

But the summertime stream of traffic dwindled and mostly dried up 

after 1869. People continued moving West, but the transcontinental 

railroad, completed that year, offered a faster, easier way over 2,000 

miles of mountain and plain. Steel and steam replaced wooden 

wheels and muscle-power. A difficult, dangerous trek of several 

months was now an easy ride of several days.

Some of Wyoming’s modern highways parallel the timeworn wagon 

route over South Pass. Trail traces—deep ruts, two-tracks, and faint, 

sinuous lines where the sagebrush refuses to grow— are visible from 

those highways. Long segments of original trail still serve Wyoming’s 

backcountry traffic. South Pass remains sage-scented and edged by the 

magnificent Wind River peaks, little changed since the emigration era.

All told, nearly 500,000 pioneers poured through that gap in the 

Rockies and claimed a continent. South Pass, accident of geography 

and Gateway to the West, helped set a new nation on its feet.

Geography is destiny.

— attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte

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Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

37

SITES AND POINTS OF INTEREST

A word about driving in the West...

Wyoming’s wide open spaces offer limited opportunities to purchase food and fuel. Before starting out, consult a road map 

to plan your fuel and refreshment stops. Once on the road, fuel stops 

are often farther apart than travelers might realize. And watch for 

livestock and wildlife on the highways, particularly at dawn and dusk 

when many animals are most active.

This Auto Tour Route guide will direct you over paved highways 

and a few well-maintained dirt roads. However, at times it describes 

opportunities to make side-trips on unpaved back roads closer to, 

and sometimes on, the original Oregon, California, Mormon Pioneer, 

and Pony Express Trails. Some of these optional routes cross public 

lands where there are no houses and little traffic. Cell phone coverage 

is spotty all across Wyoming. If you choose to drive back roads, do 

not count on summoning help in case of emergency. Go prepared. 

Check your tires, carry a spare and a road map, leave pets at home, 

take food and water, and be ready to hike back to the highway, if 

necessary.

For more guidance on visiting National Historic Trails in Wyoming, 

log onto the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) website at http://

www.wy.blm.gov/historictrails/etiquette for a short Microsoft 

PowerPoint slide show. Individual BLM field offices also can advise 

you in planning trips along more remote stretches of historic trail, and 

they can provide detailed maps of the backcountry road networks. 

See the last page of this booklet for contact information.

Driving backcountry historic trails is a thrilling—and usually quite 

safe—experience. But like the pioneers of the covered wagon days, 

you are on your own out there.

And now, Westward, Ho! Begin your auto tour at the Nebraska/

Wyoming state line on U.S. Highway 26, east of Torrington.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

38

AUTO TOUR SEGMENT A: NEBRASKA STATE LINE TO 

CASPER

(Oregon, California, Mormon Pioneer, & Pony Express Trails)

The trail corridor through eastern Wyoming followed the North 

Platte River past Fort Laramie to Fort Caspar.

A-1. Henry Hill Grave (vicinity 

of Torrington, WY) is the 

burial place of an emigrant 

who died while on his way to 

California with his family in 

1852. Wagon swales are nearby. 

Site is on private land, but 

Property Manager Gary Nickal 

will guide visitors to the grave. 

Make arrangements several days 

before your visit by calling him at 

(307) 532-4770. If no answer, leave a 

message. High-clearance vehicles only.

A-2. Cold Springs Camp Monument (U.S.-85, south of 

Torrington) commemorates an 

emigrant campground on the 

Oregon and California Trails, a 

Pony Express relay station, and 

an Overland Stage station. The 

site itself is on private property 

not visible from the monument.

Directions: From U.S.-26 in 

Torrington, turn south on U.S.-

85. Monument is about 1.5 

miles from the junction, a short 

distance beyond a railroad crossing 

of the highway, on the east side of the road. After your visit, return to 

westbound U.S.-26.

A-3. Rawhide Creek Wayside Exhibit (U.S.-26 near Lingle, WY)

Many emigrant journals and diaries from the 1840s to 1860s mention 

experiences such as “nooning,” camping for the night, crossing over, 

Site of the Henry Hill grave near 

Torrington.

Historic marker at the Cold Springs 

Campsite near Torrington.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

39

or burying a loved one on the 

banks of Rawhide Creek. Of 

these experiences, death and 

disease were common. It’s 

been estimated that there is an 

average of ten graves to every 

mile along the emigrant trails. 

An exhibit overlooking Rawhide 

Creek provides historic trail 

experiences on these subjects. 

Note that this “rest area” was 

deactivated by Wyoming DOT in 

2006.

Directions: From the U.S.-26/ U.S.-85 junction in Torrington, drive 

west toward Lingle on U.S. 26 for about 8.5 miles. Pullout is on north 

side of road.

A-4. Grattan Fight Monument 

(WY-157, south of Lingle)

stands near the site of the 

Brule Sioux camp where Lt. 

John Grattan’s detachment 

was destroyed in a fight over 

an emigrant’s cow in 1854. The 

actual battle site is on nearby 

private ground; please do not 

trespass.

Directions: From U.S.-26/85 in 

Lingle, turn south on WY-156, then 

almost immediately bear west 

onto WY-157. After 2 miles, 

cross the North Platte River and 

continue another mile. Watch 

for the brown highway sign at 

County Road 27. Monument 

is just ahead at the northwest 

corner of the intersection. 

A-5. Western History Center 

(U.S.-26, west of Lingle) offers 

Rawhide Creek rest area along U.S. 26 

near Torrington.

Historic stone marker at the site of the 

Grattan battle, near Torrington.

Western History Center near Lingle.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

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trail-related exhibits, a children’s activity area, and more. Open 

summers Mon.-Sat 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Sun. 1-4 p.m.; winter hours 

variable. Free.

Directions: From the Grattan Fight Monument, continue west on 

WY-157 for 1.7 miles. Here the road curves sharply to the right. The 

south-side emigrant trails climb the bluffs to your left. Go north 2 

miles, cross the North Platte River, and continue 1 mile to U.S.-26. 

The Western History Center is across the highway to your right.

A-6. Fort Laramie Information 

Center (Town of Fort Laramie, 

WY) includes an Oregon Trail 

monument and a Mormon 

pioneer monument. A historical 

sign provides information about 

the Mormon pioneers at Fort 

Laramie.

Directions: Continue into 

the town of Fort Laramie on 

westbound U.S.-26. The center 

is in the middle of town on the north 

side of the highway, across the street from the post office.

A-7. North Platte River 

Crossing Site (west of Town of 

Fort Laramie) is where northbank emigrants crossed the river 

to Fort Laramie. An interpretive 

panel tells the story of the 

nearby military bridge. The site, 

which is within the boundary of 

Fort Laramie National Historic 

Site, has a 1.5-mile riverside 

hiking trail.

Directions: At the Town of 

Fort Laramie, turn west on WY-160 and cross the railroad tracks. 

Continue about a mile to the North Platte River, cross the bridge, 

and turn left on County Road 15. Park at the south end of the 

1875 military bridge and walk approximately 50 yards east on the 

“confluence trail.”

Stone monument at site of the North 

Platte River Crossing.

Fort Laramie Information Center on 

U.S. 26.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

41

A-8. Fort Platte Monument 

(southwest of Town of Fort 

Laramie) marks the probable 

location of an 1841 trading 

post, often noted by passing 

emigrants. The site itself is on 

private land; please do not 

trespass.

Directions: From the North 

Platte River crossing site, 

continue west a short distance 

on WY-160. Monument is a few 

hundred yards from the bridge, on the north side of the road.

A-9. “Greatest Ride” Monument (southwest of Town of Fort 

Laramie) salutes a horse and rider who made a long, risky wintertime 

run from Fort Phil Kearney, in northeastern Wyoming, to summon 

help from Fort Laramie following a Sioux attack.

Directions: From the Fort Platte monument, continue southwest on 

WY-160 (which becomes Gray Rocks Road) for 2.5 miles. Watch for 

the monument pullout on the north side of the road at a 90-degree 

curve.

A-10. Fort Laramie National 

Historic Site (965 Gray Rocks 

Road, Fort Laramie) once 

stood sentinel over the Oregon, 

California, and later Mormon 

emigration trails, was a stop 

on the Pony Express route, 

and served as a staging ground 

for both peaceful and hostile 

dealings with Plains Indians. 

Its association with important 

figures (including Sitting Bull and 

Crazy Horse) and historic events makes Fort Laramie an icon of 

the American West. The one-time Army post, now managed by the 

National Park Service, looks much as it did 150 years ago. Allow 

several hours for your visit. Grounds are open dawn to dusk every 

day of the year. Fort museum and Visitor Center are open May-Sept. 

Historic marker for the Fort Platte 

trading post.

Parade grounds and sutlers store at 

Fort Laramie.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

42

daily, 8 a.m.-7 p.m.; and Oct.-April, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m., daily except 

Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. Go to www.nps.gov/

fola for schedule of special events and more information. Admission 

$3 adults, 15 and under free. Interagency Annual, Senior, and Access 

cards accepted. Audio-tour devices available for $3 rental at the 

visitor center in the old Commissary Storehouse.

Directions: Continue west on WY-160/Gray Rocks Road and follow 

signs to Fort Laramie National Historic Site, about 3 miles from town.

A-11. Mary Homsley Grave 

(west of Fort Laramie National 

Historic Site) is the final resting 

place of an 1852 Oregon-bound 

emigrant who died following 

a wagon accident in the North 

Platte River. An interpretive sign 

tells the story. Grave is on private 

ground, but owner allows public 

visitation.

Directions: Visitors with lowclearance vehicles should be prepared 

to walk a short distance over rough ground to reach the site. From Fort 

Laramie National Historic Site parking, return to Gray Rocks Road 

eastbound and drive toward town. In 1 mile, turn left on County 

Road 92, a maintained gravel road suitable for low-clearance vehicles. 

Go through the gateway and drive 1.2 miles, watching on the right 

for a brown directional sign for the Homsley grave and Oregon Trail 

ruts. Turn right there and continue 1.2 miles, watching for a second 

small, low directional sign on the left. Visitors in low-clearance vehicles 

should park near the sign and walk approximately 0.2 mile to the grave. 

High-clearance vehicles can turn left at the sign and enter a twotrack, which crosses a patch of deep, loose sand, and continue to 

the white concrete monument ahead. Caution – do not drive past 

the monument. The track below the grave ends at an unfenced 

irrigation canal. Keep away!

A-12. The Bedlam Ruts (west of Fort Laramie National Historic 

Site) are a fine stretch of wagon ruts and swales that visitors can walk. 

The trail segment is on undeveloped public lands jointly managed 

by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service. 

The Mary Homsley grave.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

On-site interpretive signs tell 

the story. Setting is natural and 

quiet.

Directions: This site is accessible 

to low-clearance vehicles. Be 

prepared to walk a short distance 

from parking to the ruts. From 

the Homsley grave, follow the 

two-track back to County Road 

92 and the directional sign, and 

turn right. Drive 0.4 mile. Site is on 

the north (right) side of the road. 

From here, return to U.S.-26.

A-13. North Platte Valley/

Olinger Point Overlook 

(U.S.-26 east of Guernsey, 

WY) is a highway rest area with 

interpretive signs providing 

information about 10 important 

trail-related sites and landmarks 

in the area. Sighting holes in 

the wooden posts next to the 

signs will direct your eye to the 

site – but visitors may need a boost, 

because the holes are up high! 

Binoculars are helpful, too, as the sites are distant.

Directions: Drive west on U.S.-26 for about 10 miles. Rest area is on 

the south side of the highway at 

milepost 17.80, about 2.5 miles 

east of Guernsey.

A-14. Oregon Trail Ruts State 

Historic Site and National 

Historic Landmark, also called 

the Guernsey Ruts and Deep 

Rut Hill (vicinity of Guernsey) 

boasts some of the deepest, 

most-photographed wagon 

ruts of the overland trails. Here, 

43

Interpretive exhibits at site of Old 

Bedlum Ruts.

Interpretive site at the Guernsey rest 

area on U.S. 26.

Deeply carved wagon wheel ruts near 

Guernsey.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

thousands of iron-shod wheels and hooves chewed tracks five to six 

feet deep into solid rock. Paved walkway and informational signs lead 

visitors in a loop tour along the trail. Walk is steep in places, and may 

be difficult for wheelchair access. Open sunrise to sunset daily, yearround, weather permitting. Free.

Directions: Route to historic site is clearly marked—do not follow 

signs to Guernsey State Park. After entering Guernsey westbound on 

U.S.-26, turn left (south) onto South Wyoming Avenue. From the 

turn, drive 0.9 mile, crossing the North Platte River, and then turn 

right (west) onto a county-maintained dirt road (suitable for lowclearance vehicles). A brown directional sign marks the turn. In 0.5 

mile, turn left (south), pass through a gate, and continue to parking. 

A-15. Lucinda Rollins Grave 

(vicinity of Guernsey) is 

the burial place of an 1849 

emigrant. A white concrete 

monument, visible from Deep 

Rut Hill, marks her grave. The 

original headstone that was 

once encased in the monument 

was stolen by vandals. From the 

monument, look back toward 

Deep Rut Hill to see a long stretch 

of wagon swales descending toward 

the river.

Directions: From the Oregon Trail Ruts State Historic Site, drive 

north up the gravel entrance road toward town for 0.3 mile. At the 

intersection, turn left and follow 

the unpaved road up the hill to 

the monument. 

A-16. Register Cliff State 

Historic Site (vicinity of 

Guernsey) is a soft rock face 

where many emigrants carved 

their names. The cliff is defaced 

with modern graffiti, but the 

historical inscriptions at the 

east end (left, as you face the cliff) 

44

Lucinda Rollins grave near Guernesy.

Register Cliff interpretive site south of 

Guernsey.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

are protected by a tall wire fence. A pioneer cemetery with at least 3 

graves is at the west end. Open year-round, sunrise to sunset. Free.

Directions: Watch for cattle as you approach this site, as this is open 

range country. From the Rollins grave, return to S. Wyoming Avenue/

S. Guernsey Road and turn right, onto the pavement. Follow the road 

1.7 miles as it swings eastward, and watch for a brown directional sign 

to Register Cliff. Turn north (left) there and continue to parking.

A-17. Sand Point Stage and Pony Express Monument (Guernsey) 

marks the approximate location of a Pony Express and stage station. 

Monument includes a plaque and Pony site marker, but no historical 

signs.

Directions: Leaving Register Cliff, watch for a white monument on 

the north side of the road. From there, return to Guernsey and U.S.-

26.

A-18. Cold Springs & Rifle Pit 

Hill Monument (U.S.-26 west 

of Guernsey) is a reminder 

of both the comforts and the 

dangers of the trek west. Cold 

Springs was a popular emigrant 

campsite; Rifle Pit Hill is a 

ridge crest where soldiers dug 

five 2-feet-deep holes and 

stacked rocks along the rims. 

Researchers think that these were 

defensive structures to protect 

soldiers guarding the Oregon Trail, which passes below the ridge. 

Sites are on private property; please view from roadside pullout and 

do not trespass.

Directions: From Guernsey, drive west on U.S.-26 for about two 

miles after crossing the river on the west side of town. Pullout is on 

the north side of the highway.

A-19. Bitter Cottonwood Creek Camp (west of Guernsey) was a 

shady, comfortable rest stop for travelers along the emigrant trails, 

and the site of a Pony Express station.

Directions: From the Cold Springs pullout, continue west on U.S.-

26 for about 1⁄4 mile to the next unpaved road and turn right, onto 

45

Stone monument at the Cold Springs 

camp area on U.S. 26.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

Wendover Road. You are following the corridor of the original 

emigrant trail. Follow the road around a farmhouse and up a hill, 

and continue northwestward. In 3.7 miles you will see a granite 

Oregon Trail monument that was erected by the State of Wyoming 

in 1913. Continue another 

2.6 miles to a T-intersection. 

Straight ahead, across the cattle 

guard and to the right, is a trail 

monument. Continue on across 

the railroad tracks to see the 

emigrant campground area at 

Cottonwood Creek. The Pony 

Express station site is marked 

with a steel post approximately 

0.3 mile east of the track. From here, 

you may return via the same route to 

U.S.-26 and continue west about 12 miles to Dwyer Junction and the 

Laramie Peak viewpoint. 

OR, for a true trail experience in dry weather only, you can follow 

a dirt road approximately 15 miles to I-25 just south of Glendo. 

(This route bypasses stop A-20, Laramie Peak viewpoint, described 

below.) For this backcountry adventure, go back across the cattle 

guard and turn southwest (right) onto Cottonwood Road. Stay 

on the main road near the railroad tracks. In 2.8 miles, the road 

crosses the railroad tracks, turns northwest and then west, and 

heads straight toward Laramie Peak. In 2.7 miles you will see 

a rock outcrop to your right and. At the bottom of the hill is a 

Y in the road; bear left on Dyer Road. Do not go through the 

large ranch gate to the right. Continue only 0.1 mile and look for 

another road to your right. This is a continuation of Cottonwood 

Road. Turn right onto this road and go through the second large 

overhead ranch gate and head due west toward Laramie Peak. 

Watch for cattle, as this is open range and private land. At 5.5 miles 

after the ranch gate, you will intersect I-25. There is no access to 

the interstate here, so turn north (right) on the access road and 

continue 3.6 miles to the Cassia Road interchange. Get on the 

interstate and head north toward Douglas.

46

Mormon Pioneer camp area at Bitter 

Cottonwood Creek.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

A-20. Laramie Peak Viewpoint 

(Dwyer rest area at junction of 

U.S.-26 and I-25) offers a paved 

walkway to a shady gazebo 

where visitors can view Laramie 

Peak, an important overland trail 

landmark. Interpretive signs tell 

the story.

Directions: Rest stop is located 

at the intersection of U.S.-26 and 

I-25 at Dwyer Junction. From here, 

enter I-25 northbound and drive 

toward Douglas.

A-21. Wyoming Pioneer 

Memorial Museum (400 W. 

Center, Douglas, WY) offers 

a variety of exhibits related 

to the emigrant and Pony 

Express trails, as well as a large 

gallery of Native American 

objects. Designated as a Great 

Experience for Members (GEM) 

destination by AAA. Open 

summers, Mon.-Fri. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. 

and Sat. 1-5 p.m.; winters Mon.-Fri. 

8 a.m.-5 p.m. Free.

Directions: Leave I-25 at Exit 140 at the west end of Douglas and 

drive east into town on Yellowstone Highway. Watch for the Wyoming 

State Fair Park sign and entrance on the right, shortly after crossing 

the river. Turn into the fair park; the museum is on the left, near the 

park entrance. Drive around the building to the museum entrance.

A-22. Fort Fetterman State Historic Site (752 Hwy 93, Douglas)

was built on the Bozeman gold rush trail to Montana in 1867 to 

support military action against Plains Indians, who were trying to halt 

travel across their lands. The park offers museum and interpretive 

exhibits, self-guided tours of the grounds and buildings, and various 

outdoor recreational activities. Visitor center and ordnance building 

open daily, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Memorial Day – Labor Day Weekend; 

47

State historic marker at the highway 

rest area on U.S. 26 near Dwyer 

Junction.

Pioneer Memorial Museum near the 

state fairgrounds at Douglas.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

grounds are open sunrise to 

sunset. Site is closed the rest of 

the year, but visitors may park 

at the gate and enter the fort on 

foot. A modest admission fee is 

charged.

Directions: From Wyoming 

Pioneer Memorial Museum, 

turn west onto Yellowstone 

Highway, then north (right) 

onto South Riverbend Drive. Almost 

immediately, turn west (left) onto 

WY-93; OR, if starting from I-25 westbound, take Exit 140 on the 

west end of Douglas. Turn left at the end of the exit, then make an 

immediate left onto WY-93. Follow signs 7 miles to the fort. From the 

fort, return to I-25.

A-23. Ayres Natural Bridge 

Park (Natural Bridge Road, 

west of Douglas) features a 

natural stone bridge spanning 

sparkling LaPrele Creek. Many 

emigrants visited the scenic 

landmark, although it is more 

than a mile from the wagon trail. 

An interpretive sign tells the 

story. This pleasant county park 

also offers picnicking, camping (with 

permission of the caretaker), and 

playgrounds. No pets allowed in park! Free. Open April -October, 8 

a.m.-8 p.m. For more information, call (307) 358-3532.

Directions: From I-25, take Exit 151 (Natural Bridge Exit) and turn 

south (left) onto Natural Bridge Road (County Road 13), going 

beneath the overpass. Follow signs 4.75 miles to park.

The route into the park follows nearly 5 miles of paved road, which 

becomes narrow and winding as it approaches the park. May be 

difficult passage for very large recreational vehicles. Return to I-25 

westbound, then merge onto U.S.-20/26/Business Loop I-25 at Exit 

160 to Glenrock.

48

Entrance to Fort Fetterman State 

Historic Site west of Douglas.

The stone bridge at Ayres Natural 

Bridge Park.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

A-24. Oregon Trail Park 

(E. Oregon Trail & Pioneer 

Place, Glenrock, WY) is a 

tiny neighborhood playground 

with a short stretch of shallow 

wagon ruts and an interpretive 

marker located at its west end. 

Trail ruts are rarely preserved in 

residential settings such as this.

Directions: Enter Glenrock 

westbound on U.S.-20/26 (road 

becomes Birch Street) and turn right 

(north) at the high school onto Box Elder Trail. At the north end of 

the high school campus, turn left (west) onto E. Oregon Trail. Park is 

5 blocks further, past the high school athletic fields. 

A-25. Deer Creek Crossing/

Glenrock Town Park (U.S.-20 

& Town Park Road, Glenrock)

offers a short paved trail along 

Deer Creek, two historical 

signs, and picnicking and 

playground facilities.

Directions: Continuing into 

town westbound on U.S.-20/26/ 

E. Birch Street, the highway 

makes a broad, gentle curve. 

Shortly after the curve, watch for 

Town Park Road (unsigned) on 

the north side of the highway, just 

before the bridge over Deer Creek. Turn right and enter the park. 

A-26. Deer Creek Station Site (Glenrock) has two commemorative 

monuments and a historical sign showing the layout of the Deer 

Creek Station military post. An emigrant campground, trading post, 

stage stop, telegraph, and Pony Express station (burned by Indians in 

1866) once stood near this location.

Directions: Continue west on E. Birch Street. Turn right on N. Third 

Street and continue 1 long block north to Center Street. Site is on the 

southwest corner of N. Third and Center.

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Monument at the Oregon Trail Park in 

Glenrock.

Several interpretive exhibits provide 

historical information about the Deer 

Creek Crossing area.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

A-27. The Rock in the Glen 

(U.S.-20/26, Glenrock) is a 

geological landmark where John 

C. Fremont and Kit Carson once 

camped, and where emigrants 

carved their names. The feature 

is heavily defaced with modern 

graffiti, making emigrant 

inscriptions hard to spot. Even 

so, the Rock in the Glen is fun 

to climb and explore. It is accessed 

by a rough, unpaved trail from the 

parking area. Open sunrise to sunset. Free.

Directions: Continue westbound through town on U.S.-20/26. 

Pullout is past the west end of Glenrock, on the south (left) side of 

the highway just past the Lutheran church.

A-28. Ada Magill Grave 

(U.S.20/26, west of Glenrock)

is the burial place of an emigrant 

child who died in 1864. An 

interpretive sign tells the story, 

and a Pony Express marker is 

here, as well.

Directions: On U.S.-20/26, 

about 5.2 miles west of 

Glenrock, watch for a brown 

directional sign for the Big Muddy 

Bridge Public Access. Turn north 

(right) there onto a gravel road and drive about 0.2 mile to the next 

road to the right, opposite an oil derrick. Turn right there. Grave is a 

.25 mile ahead, on the north (left) side of the road. From here, return 

to U.S.-20/26 westbound to Casper.

PROCEED TO AUTO TOUR SEGMENT B

50

The Rock in the Glen park, west of the 

community of Glenrock.

Ada Magill grave site and Pony 

Express marker west of Glenrock.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

AUTO TOUR SEGMENT B: CASPER TO SEEDSKADEE

(Oregon, California, Mormon Pioneer, & Pony Express Trails)

Beyond Fort Caspar, travelers left the Platte River lifeline to strike 

out for the Sweetwater, which would take them to the Continental 

Divide at South Pass. Once in the Pacific watershed, the main trail 

followed smaller drainages to the Green River, west of today’s 

Farson.

From Casper it is 145 miles to Lander, your next sure opportunity to 

refuel.

B-1. National Historic Trails 

Interpretive Center (1501 

N. Poplar, Casper, WY)

offers a fun and informative 

introduction to the Oregon, 

California, Mormon Pioneer, 

and Pony Express National 

Historic Trails across Wyoming. 

Visitors are greeted by center 

staff for personal orientation 

to the facility, where they can 

enjoy multimedia presentations, 

dioramas, simulated covered wagon 

and stagecoach rides, interactive exhibits, and more. Allow 2-3 hours 

to visit the center’s 7 galleries. Open daily April-Oct., 8 a.m.-7 p.m.; 

Nov.-March, Tues.-Sat. 9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Closed New Year’s Day, 

Easter Sunday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Admission is $6 adults, 

$5 seniors, $4 students, $3 youth ages 6 to 17, $1 children ages 3 to 

5, and free for those under age 3. This Bureau of Land Management 

center also accepts federal Golden Age, Golden Eagle, and Golden 

Access passes. For more information, go to http://www.blm.gov/wy/

st/en/NHTIC.html or call (307) 261-7700.

Directions: Entering the east side of Casper on U.S.-20/26, turn 

left onto WY-253 and merge onto I-25 westbound. Take Exit 189 

and bear right (north). Take the next right onto N. Poplar Street and 

follow directional signs to the center.

51

Orientation exhibits at the entrance 

to the National Historic Trails 

Interpretive Center.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

B-2. Site of Fort Caspar/Platte 

Bridge Station, Fort Caspar 

Museum, 1847 Mormon Ferry, 

and Guinard Bridge (4001 Fort 

Caspar Road, Casper) was a 

focus of 19th century emigration, 

commercial, and military 

activity. In 1847, Brigham 

Young’s Mormon pioneer party 

made a difficult crossing the 

North Platte River near this location, 

then left behind a small party to 

establish a ferry service there. Later, a toll bridge, trading post, Pony 

Express relay station, and telegraph office were built nearby. In 1862, 

the Army established a small military post at the station. The Fort 

Caspar Museum now provides on-site orientation and self-guided 

tour brochures for the reconstructed fort. The fort grounds are 

open May through September; admission is half price when the fort 

buildings are closed. Fort Caspar Museum is open Jun.-Aug., MonSun. 8 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sept. & May, Mon.-Sun. 8 a.m.-5 p.m..; and Oct.-

April., Tues.-Sat. 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission is $2 adults, $1 youth ages 

13-18, free for those 12 and under.

Directions: From the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center, 

drive south on Poplar Street, pass under the freeway, and cross the 

railroad tracks. Turn right (west) onto Collins and continue straight to 

the museum.

B-3. Red Buttes Crossing/

Bessemer Bend (south of 

Casper) is one of the places 

where travelers forded the 

North Platte River—then 300 

yards wide—for the last time, 

and started the push toward the 

Sweetwater River. This crossing 

was used mostly in the early 

years of the emigration because 

after 1847, ferries were available 

52

Interpretive Center entrance to 

historic Fort Caspar.

Interpretive exhibits along walkway at 

Bessemer Bend on the North Platte.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

between Casper and Glenrock (Deer Creek). The Red Buttes Pony 

Express station and an Overland Stage station also were located in 

this vicinity. Wayside exhibits at this BLM site tell the story. While 

visiting the crossing, look toward the east to see the Red Buttes, the 

noted emigrant-era landmark that gave the crossing its name.

Directions: From Old Fort Caspar, turn right onto Wyoming 

Boulevard. Drive 1.1 miles and bear right onto CY Avenue. Continue 

7.9miles on CY Avenue, which becomes WY-220. Near mile marker 

106, turn right on County Road 308/Bessemer Bend Road. In 1.5 

miles, the road turns 90 degrees to the right onto “Bessemer Bend 

South.” Continue around the curve to the left and cross the river. The 

interpretive site is on your right just after you cross the river. 

From Red Buttes Crossing/Bessemer Bend, you can return to WY220 and continue on the paved Auto Tour Route to Independence 

Rock (skip to entry “B-4. Independence Rock”); OR you can 

follow a 33-mile backcountry route over well-maintained dirt 

roads that closely parallel and sometimes overlie the original 

Oregon, California, Mormon Pioneer and Pony Express Trails 

between Emigrant Gap and Horse Creek Station (see “Optional 

Backcountry Route,” below).

53
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

Optional Backcountry Route: 

Emigrant Gap to Horse Creek Station

This backcountry route passes over maintained crowned-andditched dirt roads, washboard in places, but otherwise suitable 

in dry conditions for passenger sedans and other low-clearance, 

2-wheel-drive vehicles. This is a fair-weather road that can become 

impassible when wet! Do not enter if rain threatens or the road is 

muddy. Road may be closed in winter. There is no opportunity to buy 

gas or food along this route. 

To begin the Optional Backcountry Route: From the Red Buttes 

Crossing/Bessemer Bend site, turn right onto County Road 308/

Bessemer Bend Road. The road, which is unpaved, immediately 

curves to the west. Continue straight (west) past the junction with 

Twelve Mile Road. Take the next right, heading north (look for county 

historic trails sign), staying on County Road 308/Bessemer Bend 

Road. In 2 miles, the road makes a 90-degree turn to the west, then in 

another mile it intersects with County Road 319/Oregon Trail Road. 

At this intersection, look for wagon ruts going west and two fading 

tracks approaching from the east. Here and elsewhere along County 

Road 319, all the westbound traffic merged onto a single road for the 

first time on the overland route.

From here, set your trip-odometer and continue with directions below. 

Avenue of Rocks is a jagged 

spine of rock jutting out 

of the otherwise rolling 

rangeland. Wagons wound 

their way through the 

formation, which emigrants 

nicknamed “The Devil’s 

Backbone.” There are no 

interpretive signs, but wagon 

ruts are clearly visible. This is 

state-owned land, so get out and 

explore! Watch your step, though 

– this is rattlesnake and cactus country.

•

54

Jagged spine of the Avenue of the 

Rocks.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

Directions: At the intersection of County Road 308/Bessemer 

Bend Road and County Road 319/Oregon Trail Road, turn left 

(southwest) onto County Road 319/Oregon Trail Road. In 5.4 

miles, look on the right for white posts marking original trail 

swales. In 5.8 miles, watch for a Bureau of Land Management trail 

sign on your right as you crest a hill and approach the jutting spine 

of rock. Ruts and swales where wagons once descended the ridge 

can be seen along the right side of the road, which overlies part of 

the historic trail.

From here, the old trail winds back and forth across the modern 

county road. As you continue your drive, watch on both sides of 

the road for white trail markers and BLM concrete posts along the 

original trail, and look for swales and two-tracks worn into the 

earth by the passage of thousands of covered wagons. Much of the 

land west of Avenue of Rocks is unfenced private property, however. 

Please do not trespass.

Poison Spring/Clayton’s 

Slough is a low, wet spot 

about 2 miles west of Avenue 

of Rocks. Brigham Young’s 

1847 pioneer party camped 

here, and member William 

Clayton described it as “one 

of the most horrid, swampy, 

stinking places” he ever saw. 

Site is privately owned; please 

view from road.

Directions: From Avenue of 

Rocks, continue southwest on 

County Road 319/Oregon Trail Road for about 2 miles. Watch for 

white post marking the site on the right side of the road. 

Continue watching for white posts marking trail ruts on both sides of the 

road. About two miles west of Poison Spring, the county road directly 

overlies the trail.

Willow Springs provided the first cool, sweet water west of 

Casper, and so became a popular emigrant campsite. Many draft 

•

•

55

Wetland area known as Poison Spring.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

animals died for lack of grass and water along this stretch of road 

before reaching the springs. A Pony Express station, now long 

gone, was also located nearby. Private property; please observe 

from the road and do not trespass.

Directions: Continue southwest from Avenue of Rocks on 

County Road 319/Oregon Trail Road for about 6.5 miles. The 

extensive springs area is on the right side of the road.

Prospect Hill/Ryan Hill

was a difficult 400-foot 

climb, but from the top, 

travelers could see several 

sub-ranges of the Rocky 

Mountains. The expansive 

view, or “prospect,” gave 

the hill its original name. 

Several members of the 

Martin Mormon handcart 

company died near here during 

a blizzard in late October 1856. 

Today, the BLM provides a hilltop viewing area with interpretive 

exhibits. Here, visitors can take in the landscape, which is virtually 

unchanged since covered wagon days, and walk wagon ruts and 

swales on public land.

Directions: Drive southwest a mile from the Willow Springs 

area. In 0.8 mile, about halfway up the hill is a pullout with a good 

view of the swales cutting the slope. Near the top of the ridge, 1.4 

miles from Willow Springs, watch for a BLM directional sign and 

a gravel road on the right. (The sign often is knocked down by 

cattle.) Turn onto the road, which leads back about 1⁄4 mile to the 

BLM interpretive site.

Horse/Greasewood/Sage Creek was a Pony Express and 

stagecoach stop. This is also where the Martin handcart company, 

struggling west through early blizzards, first met rescue wagons 

from Salt Lake City.

Directions: From the summit of Prospect Hill, continue 

southwest on County Road 319/Oregon Trail Road for about 9.5 

miles. Where the road curves left and another road intersects 

from the right at the Murphy Ranch sign, look directly across the 

•

•

56

View of Laramie Peak and the trail 

after climbing Prospect Hill.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

road toward Horse Creek for a steel post marking the location of 

the Pony Express stop. Site is on private property; please view from 

the road.

From here, continue southwest about 3 miles to WY-220 and turn 

right (west) to rejoin the designated Auto Tour Route to Independence 

Rock.

B-4. Independence Rock (west 

of Alcova, WY) was the mostnoted landmark of the wagon 

trails west of Fort Laramie. 

Thousands of emigrants camped 

at the foot of the looming 

outcrop, and many carved their 

names into the granite. Today 

the site is a National Historic 

Landmark and a state historic 

site, managed for the public by the 

State of Wyoming. Interpretive 

exhibits tell the trail story, and historic inscriptions are visible from 

footpaths around the rock. As you follow the path from parking to 

the site, watch for nearby trail ruts and note the deep wagon swale 

passing beneath the footbridge. Free.

Directions: Continue westbound on WY-220 to milepost 63, 

watching for the highly visible and distinctive granite outcrop in 

the distance. Follow signs to the Independence Rock rest area and 

historical site complex, on the left side of the highway.

B-5. Devil’s Gate (west of 

Independence Rock) is a deep 

cleft cut through a rock ridge 

by the Sweetwater River. Many 

an emigrant puzzled at the 

geological oddity: why would 

the water chew directly through 

the rock instead of flowing 

around it? Today’s visitors can 

ponder that and other questions 

at a BLM interpretive pullout on the 

57

State historic marker at Independence 

Rock.

The Sweetwater River flows through 

Devil’s Gate.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

north side of the highway. Pullout has paved walkway, interpretive 

exhibits, and trail ruts. For a closer look at Devil’s Gate, continue 

west to the Mormon Handcart Visitor Center and follow directions to 

Rattlesnake Pass (see entry B-6, below).

Directions: From Independence Rock, turn left onto WY-220 and 

continue west for about 5.5 miles to the pullout on the north side of 

the highway. 

B-6. Rattlesnake Pass, Pioneer 

Inscriptions, and Frederick 

Richard Fulkerson Grave 

(west of Independence Rock) 

are along the old highway that 

overlies the original wagon trail 

at Devil’s Gate. Fulkerson was 

an 1847 emigrant who died 

while on his way to Oregon. 

Rattlesnake Pass is where 

the wagon trail passed around 

(not through) Devil’s Gate. An 

interpretive sign at the grave tells the story. Look for a wagon swale 

east of the Fulkerson Grave where the road curves to intersect the 

highway.

Directions: From the BLM pullout for Devil’s Gate on WY-220, 

continue west for 0.75 mile and turn right onto the entrance road to 

the Mormon Handcart Visitor Center. Drive 0.8 mile to the visitor 

center. There you can park and follow a hiking trail east to Devil’s 

Gate; or to drive, continue through the parking area and past a 

residence, toward the visitor center. Turn east (right) on the old 

highway and drive through a gateway and up to Rattlesnake Pass, 

where the old wagon trail crossed the ridge. Park at the small pullout 

on the right at 0.6 mile from the visitor center, where the road curves, 

to visit the grave. Walk back a few yards to the rock formation closest 

to the road on the north side and look for emigrant inscriptions. After 

your visit, return west along the highway to Martin’s Cove.

B-7. Mormon Handcart Historic Site & Visitor Center, Fort 

Seminoe, and Tom Sun Ranch (47600 West Wy-220, Alcova, WY), 

operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, are 

open to the public, free of admission. Handcarts were not used by 

58

View of Rattlesnake Pass at Devil’s 

Gate.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

the 1847 Mormon expedition 

led by Brigham Young, but later 

Mormon handcart pioneers 

shared this stretch of road with 

thousands of other emigrants on 

the Oregon and California Trails. 

Handcarts are available for loan 

at the visitor center, which also 

tells the Mormon stories relating 

to nearby Martin’s Cove and 

Devil’s Gate. Free tours, handcart 

treks, and overnight camping may 

be scheduled; call (307) 328-2953 or 

fax (307) 324-5218 for more information. Near the visitors’ center is 

reconstructed Fort Seminoe, a trading post dating to the 1850s. This 

area later became part of the 14-square-mile Tom Sun Ranch, now 

a National Historic Landmark. Tom Sun, a frontier rancher, drove 

cattle eastward along the Oregon Trail from the Oregon Country to 

this location in the 1870s. Site facilities are open summers Sun.-Sat. 8 

a.m.-7 p.m.; and winters Sun.-Sat. 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

Directions: From the BLM pullout for Devil’s Gate on WY-220, 

continue west for 0.75 mile and turn right onto the entrance road to 

the Mormon Handcart Visitors’ Center. Drive approximately 1 mile 

to the visitor center.

B-8. Martin’s Cove (west of 

Devil’s Gate) is named for the 

Martin Handcart Company, 

a party of Mormon emigrants 

who took shelter there during 

a blizzard in 1856. Many of 

the company died of exposure 

in their storm-battered camp 

while awaiting the arrival of 

rescue wagons from Salt Lake 

City. Although the site is strongly 

associated with this sad event in 

the Utah emigration, Oregon and California pioneers passed this 

way, as well. Today, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 

leases the cove from the Bureau of Land Management and offers site 

59

Reproduction Mormon handcarts like 

those used by Mormon emigrants in 

the 1850s.

Trail leading to the Martin’s Cove area 

near Devil’s Gate.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

orientation at the nearby Mormon Handcart Visitor Center (see entry 

B-7, above). The cove is open to the public free of charge. Interpretive 

signs provide information along the public hiking trail (5-mile round 

trip) into the cove. Handcart Center staff will transport mobilityimpaired visitors to the cove in a vehicle, without charge, upon request. 

A monument commemorating the Martin Company tragedy is on the 

north side of the old highway about 2 miles southwest of the handcart 

center.

Directions: From Rattlesnake Pass, return to the handcart center and 

park. From there, follow signs directly to the hiking trail, or go first to 

the visitor center for orientation and to request the use of a Mormon 

handcart to take with you into the cove. To drive to the Martin 

monument, continue west for 2 miles on the old highway. 

From here, return to U.S.-220 and drive west. Watch for Split Rock 

in the distance.

B-9. Split Rock (east of Jeffrey City, WY) is a “gun sight” notched 

landform that guided emigrants 

directly toward South Pass. 

Bureau of Land Management 

interpretive exhibits tell the 

story.

Directions: Return to WY-220 

and drive west toward Muddy 

Gap Junction (intersection of 

WY-220 with U.S.-287). At 

the junction, turn right onto 

U.S.287/WY-789 westbound. 

Approximately 8 miles beyond 

Muddy Gap is a BLM interpretive 

pullout/rest area on the right (north) side of the highway. From 

this angle, though, the cleft in the rock is not visible. Return to 

the highway and turn west. The old emigrant trail merges with the 

highway at the road cut at the top of the hill. About 3.2 miles beyond 

the pullout is Split Rock Monument, on the right side of the road. 

Pull over there for a good view back toward the landmark. Look 

southwest across the highway, beyond the power poles, to see the 

small, craggy rock formation the emigrants dubbed “Castle Rock.” It 

becomes more visible as you continue west along the highway.

60

Split Rock along U.S. 287 east of Jeffrey 

City.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

B-10. Ice Slough (west of Jeffrey City) was a fun rest stop for trailweary emigrants, who enjoyed digging ice out of the marshy ground. 

Ground water, insulated by a 

layer of earth and vegetation, 

often remained frozen well into 

July. Conditions have changed, 

though –no buried summertime 

ice is found there now. Site is 

on private property; please view 

from the public pullout and do not 

trespass.

Directions: Drive west on 

U.S.-287 through Jeffrey City, then 

continue 9.5 miles to the Ice Slough 

pullout, on the right side of the road. 

B-11. Willie Handcart Historic Site (Sweetwater Station Junction, 

WY) is a visitor center, operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of 

Latter-Day Saints, near one of numerous emigrant fords on the 

Sweetwater River. The area is 

best known for its association 

with the rescue of the 1856 

Willie Handcart Company, 

caught in the same deadly 

blizzard that trapped the 

Martin Company. The Oregon, 

California, Pony Express, and 

1847 Mormon Pioneer Trails 

crossed the Sweetwater here, 

too. From the center, visitors can 

drive back roads to the Willie rescue 

site, Rocky Ridge, and a number 

of other trail-related sites on public lands. Center staff can provide 

driving directions and help plan handcart treks and hikes. The center 

also offers free loan of handcarts and public camping, though it is 

best to call ahead to make arrangements. Open free to all visitors midMay to Labor Day, daily, 8 a.m.-7 p.m., and Labor Day to mid-May, 

daily, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

Directions: Drive 9.1 miles west from the Ice Slough pullout on U.S.-

287/WY-789. Site is on the left (south) side of the highway.

61

State historic marker pullout for Ice 

Slough along U.S. 287.

Office complex and information 

center for Mormon handcart treks.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

The Lander Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management also 

provides guidance for accessing these and other backcountry trail 

sites along the Sweetwater River emigrant trail corridor. Contact the 

Lander Field Office for information.

From Sweetwater Station, continue west for 30 miles on U.S.-287 

to its junction with WY-28. For the nearest food and gasoline, turn 

right at the junction and follow U.S.-287 nine miles north into 

Lander. Otherwise, turn south (left) onto WY-28 and continue on 

the Auto Tour Route. Limited services and gasoline are available 

70 miles south at Farson. Restaurants, but not fuel, are available at 

Atlantic City; drive 18.8 miles south on WY-28, turn left onto the 

Atlantic City Road, and continue 2.5 miles to town.

Also of Interest: South Pass City State Historic Site. Miners used 

the emigrant trails to enter the South Pass area during a brief gold 

rush that began there in 1867. South Pass City sprouted overnight, 

but fell into decline as the boom went bust. Today the old ghost town 

is partially restored and open to visitors. Visitor center and building 

exhibits are open May 15-Sept. 

30, daily, 9 a.m.-6 p.m.; grounds 

are open sunrise to sunset yearround, weather permitting. A 

modest admission fee is charged.

Directions: Drive south on 

WY-28, continue past Atlantic 

City turnoff to milepost 43.49, 

and turn left onto smooth 

crowned-and-ditched gravel 

road. Follow signs to South 

Pass City Historic Site. After your 

visit, return to WY-28, or to avoid 

backtracking, continue west through South Pass City on the gravel 

road. The road south of South Pass City can be rough but the route is 

scenic, with excellent views of the Oregon Buttes (a noted overland 

trail landmark) to the south.

62

South Pass City State Historic Site.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

B-12. Lander Road “Point 

of Interest” (WY-28, south 

of South Pass City) is a 

highway pullout with historical 

information about the only 

wagon road built by the federal 

government to support the 

westward emigration.

Directions: Continue south on 

WY-28 from South Pass City. 

Pullout is on the left, 0.6 mile past 

milepost 38.

B-13. South Pass Rest Area 

(south of South Pass City) is a 

State of Wyoming facility with 

interpretive signs about the pass 

and local wildlife.

Directions: Rest area is north 

of milepost 34 on WY-28, 

on the northeast bank of the 

Sweetwater River.

From here, you can continue on WY-28 to South Pass Overlook, a 

Bureau of Land Management interpretive site with a panoramic 

view of the South Pass region (skip to entry “B-14. South Pass 

Overlook”); OR, visitors can follow the old wagon trail itself a short 

distance to South Pass National Historic Landmark, arguably the 

most historically significant spot on the combined trail corridor (see 

“Optional Backcountry Side-Trip,” below).

63

State historic marker on state road 28 

south of South Pass City.

Information facility at the rest area 

along state road 28.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

Optional Backcountry Side-Trip: 

South Pass National Historic Landmark

This optional side-trip follows about 3 miles of maintained county roads 

and less than 1 mile of original two-track wagon trail to the South Pass 

interpretive site at the Continental Divide. Auto Tour Route visitors 

are advised to turn around at that site and return to WY-28. The 

old wagon trail continues west and rejoins WY-28 about 5 miles beyond 

the South Pass exhibits, but the trail is extremely rough and often is 

impassible. Proceed at your own risk.

High clearance vehicles recommended. Do not attempt to turn onto 

the original wagon trail segment when the road is wet or when rain 

threatens. Road is closed in winter. Detailed maps of the area are 

available from the Rock Springs and Lander Field Offices of the 

Bureau of Land Management.

South Pass, a 20-mile 

wide, gently sloping gap 

in the Rocky Mountains, 

opened the west to 

emigration by providing 

a good wagon route over 

the Continental Divide. 

Everyone who followed 

the Oregon, California, 

Mormon Pioneer, and Pony 

Express Trails crossed the 

mountains here—and scars left 

by thousands of wagon wheels and hooves are still visible. Today, 

South Pass is a National Historic Landmark managed by the BLM, 

and the area is open free to the public.

Directions: From South Pass Rest Area, continue south on WY28 for 0.7 mile, watching on the right for a sign indicating the 

Big Sandy entrance to the Bridger Wilderness. Do not follow the 

sign, but instead continue another 0.2 mile on the highway and 

turn left (southeast) onto Oregon Buttes Road. Zero your trip 

odometer, then continue southeast across the cattle guard and 

•

64

Ezra Meeker stone marker at South 

Pass.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

under the power lines. Cross a second cattle guard and continue 

to odometer reading 2.8 miles, slowing where the road begins 

curving to the right. Look for the old wagon trail crossing Oregon 

Buttes Road at the curve; it can be hard to see when approaching 

from the north. Turn right (west) onto the two-track. If the twotrack appears too rough for your vehicle, park here and hike about 

a mile to the South Pass monuments. 

You are now on the original corridor of the Oregon, California, 

Mormon Pioneer, and Pony Express National Historic Trails at 

South Pass. The two-track you are driving is original wagon trail 

that has been slightly modified by modern vehicle traffic.

The Oregon Buttes, the dark 

landform on the horizon to your 

left after turning onto the trail, 

roughly marked the emigrants’ 

entry into the Oregon Territory.

Directions: After turning west 

onto the trail two-track, pull over 

at the BLM interpretive exhibit 

just ahead on the left.

As you continue west on the trail, 

keep to the main two-track and watch along both sides for trail 

markers and parallel ruts and swales. Those intact wheel ruts, 

created where wagons spread out to avoid the dust kicked up by 

those ahead, have not been altered by modern vehicle traffic. For a 

great trail experience, park on 

the two-track and explore those 

original wagon ruts on foot – do 

not drive on them!

South Pass Wayside and 

Monuments. On the right 

side of the road at odometer 

reading 3.6 miles is a BLM 

interpretive exhibit about 

South Pass. A short distance 

•

•

65

Oregon Buttes as seen in the distance 

south of South Pass.

BLM Interpretive exhibit east of the 

South Pass summit.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

beyond, on the right, stands a small monument commemorating 

Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spalding, missionary women who 

crossed the pass with their husbands in 1836. (Historians now 

agree that the missionaries actually crossed the divide near the 

Little Sandy on what became the Lander Road route.) Also 

nearby is a stone monument erected by Ezra Meeker, a coveredwagon emigrant who returned years later to mark and promote 

protection of the Oregon Trail. 

From here, turn your vehicle around and pause to look in front of 

you to the east: the road you are driving is in the bottom of a broad, 

deep swale created by multi-lane wagon traffic. Now return to WY28 the way you came. Turn left (west) onto the highway and continue 

to stop B-14, below.

B-14. South Pass Overlook 

(west of South Pass City) is a 

BLM interpretive site with views 

of several trail landmarks, along 

with historical signs that tell 

their stories.

Directions: The overlook is 

5.3 miles southwest of South 

Pass Rest Area on the east side 

of WY-28. The alternative 

backcountry route described above 

leaves the wagon trail and rejoins the 

highway here. 

B-15. “False Parting of the Ways” (east of Farson, WY) is a highway 

pullout with information about the split where the main trail went 

southwest toward Fort Bridger and the Sublette Cutoff continued 

directly west. Historical signs mistakenly suggest that the Parting 

of the Ways was right here (which is why the site is called “False 

Parting”). The actual Parting of the Ways is several miles northwest of 

the pullout.

Directions: Continue west for 5.1 miles past the South Pass 

Overlook. Pullout is on the right. From here, continue southwest on 

WY-28 toward Farson.

66

BLM interpretive site for several 

landmarks in the South Pass area 

along state road 28.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

B-16. Big Sandy Pony Express 

Station (U.S.-191, Farson),

burned by Indians in 1862, 

stood a short distance south 

of the Big Sandy Crossing. The 

site, on private property, can be 

viewed from a pullout. Please do 

not trespass. Commemorative 

monuments tell about the 

station and the place to the east 

where the first Pony Express riders 

crossed the Big Sandy.

Directions: At Farson, turn right on U.S.-191 and make an immediate 

left into the pullout at the northwest corner of U.S.-191 and WY-28.

B-17. Little Sandy Crossing 

(WY-28, Farson) was a fording 

place for travelers taking the 

southerly route toward Fort 

Bridger. A monument near the 

highway junction recounts a 

legendary 1847 conversation 

between Brigham Young and 

mountain man Jim Bridger about 

the advisability of settling in 

the Great Salt Lake Valley. Property 

beyond the pullout is privately owned; 

please view from the road.

Directions: At Farson, follow WY-28 southwest across its 

intersection with U.S.-191. Continue across the bridge and turn right 

into the pullout approximately 1⁄4 mile past the intersection.

From here, you can skip to “Auto Tour Segment C: The Lander 

Road” and turn north on U.S.-191 toward Pinedale; OR you can 

continue on to Simpson’s Hollow and the Lombard/Mormon Ferry 

site, listed below. 

B-18. Simpson’s Hollow (southwest of Farson) is a military skirmish 

site where Mormon militiamen, harassing U.S. Army troops on 

their way to Utah in 1857, captured and burned 22 army supply 

67

Historical markers for the Big Sandy 

Pony Express station in Farson.

Mormon trail monument for the Little 

Sandy Crossing west of Farson on state 

road 28.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

wagons. Hostilities between 

Utah Mormons and the federal 

government—known as the 

Utah War— are blamed for the 

drop in emigration traffic that 

year. BLM waysides tell the 

story.

Directions: Continue southwest 

from Farson on WY-28 for 

about 10 miles. Pullout is 

on the right side of the highway 

near milepost 118. Hike the dirt 

footpath for about 200 yards to the 

concrete marker. Here you can walk the actual trail as it descends into 

Simpson’s Hollow.

B-19. Pilot Butte Pullout 

(southwest of Farson) is a BLM 

interpretive site that tells of 

tragedy and difficulties on the 

trail.

Directions: From Simpson’s 

Hollow, continue southwest on 

WY-28 for 2 miles. Pullout is on 

the left side of the highway near 

milepost 116.

B-20. Lombard Ferry/Mormon 

Ferry (Seedskadee National 

Wildlife Refuge) was the main 

crossing of the treacherous 

Green River (called Seedskadee, 

or “Prairie Chicken River,” by 

the Shoshone people). Mormons 

operated a commercial ferry 

service here but some travelers 

opted to save the fare and brave 

the current themselves. Many 

drowned at the Green River 

crossings. BLM interpretive exhibits 

68

Granite memorial at the site where 

U.S. military wagons and soldiers 

were ambushed.

This pullout along state road 28 

provides a distant view of Pilot Butte.

Interpretive area near the Lombard 

Ferry site on the Green River.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

tell the story. Walk down the short, paved, path from the parking lot 

to see a replica ferry.

Directions: From Simpson’s Hollow, continue southwest on WY-28 

for about 18 miles. Before crossing the Green River, watch for the 

refuge sign and, after crossing the bridge, turn left into the parking 

area and interpretive site near milepost 102.

At the intersection of WY-2 with WY-372 at Seedskadee, turn 

right (north) to continue through Kemmerer and on toward 

Idaho (skip to Auto Tour Segment D); OR turn left (south) toward 

the city of Green River to continue to Utah (skip to Auto Tour 

Segment E).

69

The Wind River Range appears today much as it did to the pioneer emigrants in the 

1840s-60s.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

AUTO TOUR SEGMENT C: THE LANDER ROAD

(Oregon & California Trail Variant)

Auto Tour Segment C is a loop route that goes north from Farson for 

36 miles on U.S.-191, then turns west on state road 351 to parallel 

24 miles of the Lander Road. At U.S.-189, the tour route turns south 

again and continues 67 miles to Kemmerer. From Kemmerer, you 

can follow the Oregon & California trails west toward Idaho, or 

go southwesterly to follow the Mormon Pioneer, Pony Express, and 

California trails to Utah. To follow Auto Tour Segment C, turn north 

on U.S.-191 at Farson.

C-1. Lander Road (from U.S. 

191 south of Pinedale, WY) was 

a government funded shortcut 

that saved emigrants five days of 

travel – and it avoided a stretch 

of desert, winding instead 

through an area of abundant 

water and wood. Here, the old 

wagon road lies a short distance 

north of, and parallels state 

highway WY-351.

Directions: At Farson, turn north 

on U.S.-191 and drive 36 miles to WY-351. Turn left (west) onto 

WY-351 and continue 24 miles to the junction with U.S.-189. At the 

junction, turn left (south) to continue the tour.

Also of Interest: Green 

River Rendezvous Area. 

Turn north on U.S.-189 for 

approximately 18 miles to the 

Green River Rendezvous area 

where trappers and explorers 

frequently met each spring 

to trade their fur pelts for 

supplies and goods. Several 

locations just south of Daniel, 

WY, offer historical monuments 

and interpretive exhibits; including 

70

Lander Road west of Big Sandy along 

state road 351.

Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spalding 

monument near Daniel.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

Father Pierre DeSmet, who conducted worship services here in 

July 1840, and Marcus & Narcissa Whitman and Henry & Eliza 

Spalding who attended the Green River Rendezvous on their way 

west in 1836. Pinedale, WY, is about another 11 miles east of Daniel 

if you need gasoline or food.

C-2. Lander Road & Sublette 

Cutoff Interpretive Pullout 

(Marbleton, WY) tells of those 

two variants of the Oregon and 

California Trails.

Directions: Pullout is on the 

west side of U.S.-189 at mile 

marker 109.38. Watch for signs 

to fur trade-era sites in this area, 

as well.

C-3. Names Hill (west of Fontenelle Reservoir), located at the 

Sublette Cutoff crossing of the Green River, was a popular emigrant 

campsite and general gathering place. Mountain men operated 

a ferry here. The hill takes its name from the names carved in its 

sandstone face by passing 

trappers, emigrants, government 

surveyors, and others. American 

Indian petroglyphs are found 

there, as well as modern graffiti.

The old trail crossing is now 

submerged under Fontanelle 

Reservoir.

Directions: Pullout is on the 

west side of U.S.-189, about 

3.5 miles south of the interpretive 

pullout described above. From here, 

continue south to Kemmerer.

From Kemmerer, follow Auto Tour Segment D to go to Idaho. To go 

to Utah, skip to Auto Tour Segment E.

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Granite marker for historic trails 

between South Pass & the Bear River.

Granite marker for Names Hill on U.S. 

189 south of La Barge. 
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

AUTO TOUR SEGMENT D: SEEDSKADEE TO IDAHO STATE 

LINE

(Oregon & California Trails)

There are no interpreted trail sites along this short segment of the 

auto tour route between Kemmerer, Wyoming, and the Idaho border 

— but go this way if you plan to follow the Oregon Trail along the 

Bear and Snake rivers through Idaho. 

From the Lombard/Mormon Ferry site at Seedskadee, turn right 

onto WY-372. Drive 22 miles and turn left (west) on U.S.-189 

toward Kemmerer. Those joining Auto Tour Segment D on U.S.-

189 from the Lander Road tour should continue on U.S.-180 to 

Kemmerer, as well. Drive 19 miles from the junction of WY-372 and 

U.S.-189, turn left (south) on WY-233, and then turn right (west on 

U.S.-30). Follow U.S.-30 through Sage, Wyoming. West of Sage, turn 

right (north) on U.S.-30 to go to Montpelier, Idaho and on toward 

Fort Hall. The route from Montpelier will be described in the Auto 

Tour Route Interpretive Guide for Idaho and Utah.

Also of Interest: Fossil Butte National Monument, located about 

10 miles west of Kemmerer, is one of the richest fossil localities in the 

world. Entrance is free. A driving map to a nearby segment of the 

Sublette Cutoff is available upon request at the visitor center.

72
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

AUTO TOUR SEGMENT E: SEEDSKADEE TO UTAH STATE 

LINE

(Mormon Pioneer, Pony Express, Oregon, & California Trails)

To continue to Fort Bridger from the Lombard/Mormon Ferry site 

at Seedskadee, continue west on WY-28 to the intersection with 

WY-372 and turn left (south). Continue 26.4 miles to I-80, watching 

along the way for roadside concrete markers showing where two 

trail variants intersect the highway. At I-80, turn east to visit the 

Sweetwater County Museum (entry E-1, below), OR turn west to 

continue toward Granger (entry E-2).

E-1. Sweetwater County 

Historical Museum (3 East 

Flaming Gorge Way, Green 

River, WY) offers exhibits of 

trail relics and Lakota artifacts. 

Open Mon.-Sat., 10 a.m.-6 p.m. 

Closed holidays. Free.

Directions: From I-80, take 

Exit 91 at Green River and 

merge onto Flaming Gorge Way. 

Museum is at the corner of Flaming 

Gorge Way and North Center Street. 

From the museum, return to I-80 westbound and proceed to Granger.

E-2. Granger Stage Station 

State Historic Site/Ham’s Fork 

Pony Express Station Locale 

(Granger, WY) was an original 

stagecoach station built by the 

Ben Holladay Stage Company 

in 1862. It later was purchased 

by Wells Fargo and continued 

to function as a stage station 

through the early 1870s. A Pony 

Express marker commemorates the 

long-gone Ham’s Fork Pony Express 

station that stood about a half-mile away, south of the river. Open 

daylight hours year-round. Free.

73

Sweetwater County Museum.

Stage Station at Granger.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

Directions: From westbound I-80, take Exit 66 (Kemmerer/Pocatello 

exit) onto U.S. 30. After about 5 miles, take the turnoff on the left 

to WY-375 and Granger. Continue another mile toward town. In 

Granger, follow signs to the stage station (right on Banks Drive, left at 

First Street, and left on Spruce Street).

E-3. Mormon Monument 

(I-80 Rest Stop, Lyman, WY)

is a classic, an obelisk topped 

with a beehive that symbolizes 

old Mormon Deseret and 

today’s state of Utah. This 

one commemorates the 1847 

Mormon pioneer trek.

Directions: From I-80, take 

Lyman Exit 41 to the rest area. 

Monument is near parking area.

E-4. Fort Bridger State Historic Park (Fort Bridger, WY) is 

another touchstone of trail history. Mountain men, Indian traders, 

Oregon and California emigrants, Mormon pioneers and militiamen, 

the 49ers, Pony Express riders, stagecoach drivers, U.S. soldiers, 

and railroad men all figured in its past. Today’s state park offers 

self-guided tours of the fort, living history demonstrations, open 

archeological excavations, museum exhibits, a civilian cemetery, and 

the grave of a heroic and beloved dog. Special tours and events—

including the biggest Mountain 

Man Rendezvous reenactment 

in the West—are also available. 

Grounds are open year-round, 9 

a.m.-4:30 p.m.; exhibit buildings 

are closed after Labor Day 

weekend through May 31. 

Museum/visitor center is open 

daily May 1- Sept. 30, and open 

weekends only in Oct. and early 

Nov. and also from mid-March until 

April 30. Hours vary seasonally. For 

admission, schedule, and events calendar, call the park at (307) 782-

3842.

74

Mormon Pioneer Monument at 

Lyman rest area.

Commanding Officer’s quarters at 

Fort Bridger.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

Directions: From I-80, take Exit 34 and follow business loop about 

2.5 miles into Fort Bridger. Watch for park entrance on south side of 

the street after entering town.

E-5. Bear River State Park (601 Bear River Drive, Evanston, 

WY) mostly offers wildlife exhibits, but is a good place to pick up 

information on other historical sites and trail-related activities in the 

area. Information center and day-use areas are open year-round, 

daily, 8 a.m. -10 p.m. Closed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New 

Year’s. Free.

Directions: From I-80, take Exit 6 at Evanston. Turn left at the end of 

the exit onto Bear River Drive and enter the park. 

E-6. Uinta County Museum 

(36 Tenth St., Evanston) will 

have permanent exhibits on 

historic trails, the Lincoln 

Highway, and the railroad 

once its construction project 

is completed in spring 2008. 

Meanwhile, it remains open. 

Hours are Mon.-Fri. 9 a.m.-5 

p.m., 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturdays. 

Free.

Directions: From I-80, take Exit 5 

into Evanston, Turn right (north) onto Front Street and proceed to 

Front and 10th Streets. 

Follow I-80 west to continue to Castle Rock, Utah. The Mormon 

Pioneer and California Trail routes from there will be described in 

the Auto Tour Route Interpretive Guide for Idaho and Utah.

This ends the Auto Tour Route of the Oregon, California, Mormon 

Pioneer, and Pony Express National Historic Trails across Wyoming. 

75

Unita County Museum.
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming
Interpretive Auto Tour 

Wyoming

77

Credits:

Research & Text: Lee Kreutzer, Cultural Resources Specialist, IMRNational Trails System Office

Layout/Design, Editing & Graphics: Chuck Milliken, Interpretive 

Planner, IMR-National Trails System Office.

Graphic Images: All photo images used throughout this document 

are National Park Service except for the following: pages - inside 

front cover, 5, & 33 are courtesy of the Library of Congress; page - 1a 

(Independence Rock), is courtesy of the Brigham Young University 

Online Collection; pages - 6, 26, 29, & 30 are courtesy of the Beinecke 

Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University; pages - front and 

back covers, 7, 13, 22, 27, & 35, (William Henry Jackson paintings), 

are courtesy of Scotts Bluff National Monument; page 27 - is courtesy 

of the Denver Public Library.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

National Park Service

National Trails System Office

324 South State Street

Suite 200, Box 30

Salt Lake City, UT 84111

Email:

ntsl_interpretation@nps.gov

Mormon Pioneer NHT

www.nps.gov/mopi

Oregon NHT

www.nps.gov/oreg

California NHTY

www.nps.gov/cali

Pony Express NHT

www.nps.gov/poex

Wyoming Tourism

http://www.wyomingtourism.org/

Oregon & California Trails Assoc.

http://www.octa-trails.org

Nat’l. Pony Express Association

http://www.xphomestation.com

Mormon Trail Association

http://www.mormontrails.org
Regional ATR Map - Wyoming
National Trails System

National Park Service

U.S. Department of the Interior

For free distribution only