OT Register Cliff -- Guernsey WY
N 42° 14.831 W 104° 42.711
13T E 523771 N 4677261
Amazing Register Cliff, a landmark on the Oregon, California and Morman Emigrant trails, earned a mention in the WPA Guide to the Oregon Trail
Waymark Code: WMY1RY
Location: Wyoming, United States
Date Posted: 04/03/2018
Views: 1
The waymark coordinates are located at the small Oregon Trail Cemetery at the Register Cliff State Historic Site outside of Guernsey, Wyoming.
The WPA writers wrote about Register Cliff in the regional Guide to the Oregon Trail as follows:
"[Page 173]
1. Left from Guernsey on a dirt road to REGISTER CLIFF, 3.3 m., a chalk bluff that was a popular autograph album of early travelers. Of the thousands of names daubed and cut here, about seven hundred are still legible. One is dated 1842. The cliff was first called Sand Point. The wide, grassy meadow at its base was often used as the first campsite west of Fort Laramie. Traders named Ward
and Guerrier operated a post here for a time; Ward moved away in 1856, in 1857 [page 174] becoming the post trader at Fort Laramie, and in the same year Guerrier was killed when a keg of powder exploded.
A number of people who died on the trail were buried at the base of Register Cliff."
This small poignant cemetery might have been forgotten and abandoned, but now it has been fenced with a new wrought-iron fence. The names of the 4 people buried here, most likely Oregon Trail emigrants, are lost to history, but their graves are preserved as part of the epic, tragic Oregon Trail story.
Book: Oregon Trail
Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 173-174
Year Originally Published: 1939
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