Oregon Trail Ruts - Oregon Trail Ruts State Historic Site nr Guernsey WY
N 42° 15.363 W 104° 44.908
13T E 520747 N 4678236
A state historic marker on Trail Rut Hill near Guernsey WY
Waymark Code: WMK1VF
Location: Wyoming, United States
Date Posted: 01/31/2014
Views: 8
The OT ruts at Trail Rut Hill are the best in the country. It;s no wonder that this site is recorded as both a US National Landmark and a WY State Historic Site.
This poetic, sometimes overwrought, historical marker reads as follows:
"OREGON TRAIL RUTS
Registered National Historic Landmark
Wagon wheels cut solid rock, carving a memorial to Empire Builders. What manner of men and beasts impelled conveyances weighting on those grinding wheels? Look! A line of shadows crossing boundless wilderness.
Foremost, nimble mules drawing their carts, come poised Mountain Men carrying trade goods to a fur fair – the Rendezvous. So, in 1830, Bill Sublette turns the first wheels from St. Louis to the Rocky Mountains! Following his faint trail, a decade later and through the 1860s, appear straining, twisting teams of oxen, mules, and heavy draught-horses drawing Conestoga Wagons for Oregon Pioneers. Trailing the Oregon-bound avant-garde but otherwise mingling with those emigrants, inspired by religious fervor, loom footsore and trail-worn companies – Mormons dragging or pushing handcarts as they follow Brigham Young to the Valley of the Salt Lake. And, after 1849, reacting to a different stimulus but sharing the same trail, urging drauft animals to extremity, straining resources and often failing, hurry gold rushers California bound.
A different breed, not emigrants but enterprisers and adventurers, capture the 1860s scene. They appear, multi-teamed units in draft, - heavy wagons in tandem, jerkline operators and bullwhackers delivering freight to Indian War outposts and agencies. Now, the apparition fades in a changing environment. Dimly seen, this last commerce serves a new, pastoral society; the era of the cattle baron and the advent of settlement blot the Oregon Trail."
Marker Name: Oregon Trail Ruts
Marker Type: Rural Roadside
Addtional Information:
This marker is located in the Oregon Trail Ruts State Historic Site near Guernsey WY
Group Responsible for Placement: State of Wyoming
Web link(s) for additional information: [Web Link]
Date Dedicated: Not listed
Marker Number: Not listed
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Visit Instructions:
Please post a photo of you OR your GPS at the marker location. Also if you know of any additional links not already mentioned about this bit of Wyoming history please include that in your log.