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Oregon Trail-Lander Cutoff-South Pass Area
Just south of South Pass City turnoff on Highway 28 |
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| This is an old trail used by the Indians and the trappers of the fur period, a short cut to the Snake River country. It was proposed an emigrant road by mountain man John Hockaday in 1854. No emigrant trails crossed the mountains north of here. It was improved as a wagon road for the government by F. W. Lander, in 1859 to avoid dry wastes of the roads to the south and to provide more water, wood and forage. Here it commenced the crossing of the south end of the Wind River Mountains and the Continental Divide and on to the Pacific Northwest. Thirteen thousand people and thousands of domestic animals passed this way in 1859 and for thirty years thereafter it was used heavily, setting the destiny of an empire. These wagon tracks and lonely graves for many miles beyond, a great landmark of history, have been recognized for preservation by:
U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, Sublette County Historical Society. This trail has been marked at all accessible points with brass caps. |
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