The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-04-21
Local Weather Report
 New Haven, April 20.
BRIEF MENTION
High water to-day. 2::sO a. m.
THE OLD SIOUX TRAIL.
Prehistoric Highway From Central to
 British America

Prehistoric Highway From Central to
 British America.
 When the Belgo-American Drilling Trusts new railroad is built from Orin Junction to Lander, a few miles west of Casper. Wyo., there will be afforded opportunity to make a striking compar- ison of the highways of the present and of the past. The railroad grade will cross what is known as the Sioux trail, a sharply defined pathway at that point but north and south traceable only by widely separated monuments. This trail extends from Central America to British Columbia and it's origin has never been determined, the name sioux trail'' being derived from the fact that it was extensively used by the Indians of this region in early days.
 At the point where the railroad will cross this ancient highway, and for many miles on either side, the trail is marked by great monuments of loose stones piled at intervals of a few feet. As progress is made either to the north or to the south, these monuments be- come more isolated and finally occur only at long and uncertain distances
 The greatest number or them occur in the pass leading down to the Hole in-the- Wall, seventy miles north of Casper. There they form a solid wall for a distance of several miles, there being but slight indentations in the bar rier to distinguish one monument from another. Parallel to this wall runs the trail which, where the ground is soft, has been worn to a depth of more than a foot. It is just wide enough for po- nies to travel over it in single file.
 It is said that the stone monuments are so numerous near the Hole-in-the Wall for the reason thar this is a se- cred locality. and each traveller passing that way carried a stone, which he ad- ded to the monuments. That this was done is well known, as the custom was adhered to by the Indians to d com naratively recent date. If the number of stones in the monuments represents the number of Indians and earlier in- habitants that passed over the trail, then it's travel has exceeded that of all of the transcontinental railroads com bined.
 Archaeologists who have examined the monuments are of the opinion that they were formed from purely religious motives as they are too numerous to have been intended for guide stones, and frequently in sections where there is but one trail and guide stones would have been SuperAuous.
 Then account for the great number of them in Wyoming and the scattered few in Central America, Mexico and the Southern states through which the trail passes, by the theory that the trail was iriginate and used by people of the far South who utilized it in travel from their domain to the splendid hunting grounds in British Columbia They are supposed to have been an intensely sup erstitious race; builders of temples and monuments to their gods, who sought to placate strange gods in a strange country by the erection of these rude piles of stones. The gIaring crimson of the soil and cliffs in the vicinity of the Hole-in- -the-Wall probably impressed them with greater superstitious terror than did any other phenomenon en- cOunL6fGu OH the Lrdll anu idI InlS pOlnL their efforts to please the gods were es- pecially apparent. The trail leads di- rectly through the Hole-in-the-Wa the canon that in late years was made famous as a resort of desperadoes. On the bleak pass overlooking the hole and the Red valley and in the canon of the Hole, it is there that the monuments merge into an almost continuous wall
 The earliest explorers of this region noted these monuments and the trail, then apparently as ancient and sunken as at the present day. The Indians did not know the origin of the trail, but had many superstitions concerning it. One that it had been used as high way by God who reigned at the begin ming of the world, did not prevent their taking advantage of the easy travel that it afforded. Even today the monuments are several feet in height and during the times that the trail was most travelled must have been imposing piles.-From the Rocky Mountain News