Buckskin Crossing–A Landmark
About 8 miles south of Big Sandy on County Rd. 1804 where road crosses
Big Sandy River.

This part of the Big Sandy River has been known as the Buckskin Crossing since the 1860s. Legend is that a trapper and hunter named Buckskin Joe lived here with his wife and daughter. The daughter died here. This marker is near his cabin site. This crossing was used by the fur companies and trappers, Captain Bonneville, Captain Wm. D. Stewart, and later by John C. Fremont. Captain Stewart’s artist—the noted Alfred Jacob Miller—made the first painting of this area in 1837. This ford of the Lander Cutoff of the Oregon Trail, campsite and burial ground was heavily used by the emigrants, their hundreds of wagons and thousands of mules, cattle and horses. This was the mail route from the east to the west side of the Wind River Mountains in the early 1900s. Big Sandy Creek was named by William Ashley on his trapping expedition in 1825. Of the thousands of people who passed this way only the wagon tracks and graves remain.