The names are legend in western history. The Oregon Trail. The Pony Express Trail. The California Trail. The Mormon Pioneer Trail. They speak of the nation’s expansion beyond the wide Missouri all the way to the Pacific. They conjure images of slow-moving covered wagon trains stretching to the distant horizon. They recall stories of hardy pioneers facing untold hardships in their quest for a better life on the other side of the shining mountains. All of these trails are now designated as National Historic Trails. All of them came through a place that would become Casper, Wyoming.

The National Historic Trails Interpretive Center in Casper tells the story of the pioneers and of the trails they traveled. The 27,000 square foot, multi-million dollar facility is dedicated to commemorate the emigrants who traveled westward in search of new lives, new land, new wealth or religious freedom in a raw, wild land few of them knew anything about. The story is told in the pioneers’ own words taken from thousands of authentic emigrant diaries and journals.

Visitors to the Center’s seven galleries will spend quality time with all of the people who played a role in America’s west, ranging from the native peoples who established the travel routes the emigrants would later follow to the construction crews building the first transcontinental railroad, whose “Golden Spike” foretold the end of the American frontier. In between, visitors will meet fur trappers, mountainmen, missionaries, explorers and early hope-filled farm families in covered wagons headed for a rumored “land of milk and honey” in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Next they will encounter wild and reckless “Forty-Niners” in a rush to California’s gold fields and thoughtful Mormon families pushing handcarts toward a new freedom in the valley of the Great Salt Lake. Young, wiry Pony Express riders, stagecoach drivers and telegraph construction crews round out the story.

Throughout the galleries, viewers are treated to historically authentic life-sized displays depicting life on the trails. Interactive exhibits allow visitors to experience first-hand what it was like to pull a handcart, cross the flood-swollen North Platte River in a covered wagon, feel the bone-chilling cold of a November night at Martin’s Cove, sit in an Overland Stagecoach or mount a Pony Express horse.

A stop at the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center is the best first step in any traveler’s personal mission of discovery and adventure in Wyoming. The Center is open 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily from April through October. Winter hours are 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Reprinted from museum brochure.