David Johnson

On the western edge of Wyoming’s Red Desert lie the remains of an informal campsite where, for about two decades, motorists on the transcontinental Lincoln Highway pulled off to spend the night. Inscriptions they left on rocks, and bottles and saucer shards they scattered in the sagebrush tell tales of earlier times.

In 1890 Confederate veteran Frank Nevin established a small, 160-acre homestead southeast of Rawlins. As the old open-range system was fast disappearing, he and his family grew vegetables and ran small herds of cattle and sheep. Archaeological excavations at the site have provided provide rich information about these changing times on the range.

The Rawlins to Baggs wagon road was a primary freight route from the Union Pacific Railroad south to Colorado. Freighters first supplied Ute people at the White River Agency and later, after the Utes were forcibly removed to Utah, freighters supplied the Euroamerican settlers who took up the Indian lands.

One of three major roads across the mountain West, the Cherokee Trail ran from the Cherokee Nation—present Oklahoma—to the California gold fields. It served as a principal route for people from the South to lands of their dreams—and it crossed what’s now Wyoming on the way.

A major route for emigrants, freighters, the military, stagecoaches and mail, the Overland Trail across present southern Wyoming saw heavy traffic in the 1850s and 1860s. At different stations along the way, coach drivers obtained fresh horses, the wives of station masters fed dusty travelers and soldiers fought attacking warriors.