The Oregon Trail Journal

June 21 – After breakfast, we left Lander for South Pass City, Wyoming. We stopped briefly at Red Canyon Scenic Overlook (Waymark Code: WM1TCV).

We passed the Clarissa Gold Mine on our way to the South Pass City State Historic Site. I visited three buildings of the existing 24 buildings in South Pass City, an old mining town (1868), including a hotel, saloon/bar (Butch Cassidy drank here) and the Wyoming Masonic Lodge No. Two, Home to South Pass City Mercantile (Waymark Code: WM1TD9). I got photographs and coordinates.

The Lander Cut-Off left the Oregon Trail at Burnt Ranch on the Sweetwater River near South Pass City, Wyoming. Frederick Lander surveyed the trail in 1857. Ten of thousands of emigrants passed over the trail (the Pacific Wagon Road) during its use. The Lander Cut-Off rejoined the Oregon Trail in Fort Hall, Idaho northeast of Pocatello at Ross Fort Creek. The new route offered water, wood and forage for emigrants and the stock. It also saved wagon trains seven days.

Heading for Rock Springs, I saw the rugged Wind River Mountains. We crossed South Pass, a National Historic Landmark. Wyoming has a mean elevation of 6,700 feet above sea level. We were at 7,550 feet above sea level when we crossed the Continental Divide at South Pass. Stone monuments mark the summit of South Pass.

South Pass was perhaps the most important gateway through the Rocky Mountains. Bounded by the Wind River Range on the north and the Antelope Hills on the south, the pass offered overland emigrants a broad, relatively level corridor over the Continental Divide.

We stopped at an Overlook with a good view of South Pass (Waymark Code: WM1TD0) and Oregon Trail ruts. With South Pass behind them, the emigrants faced the second half of their journey. They were now in Oregon Country. The roughest travel was yet to come.

We stopped at the false “Parting of the Ways”--a group of historical markers about 15 miles northeast of Farson. The actual jumping-off onto the Sublette Cutoff was eight or ten miles west of this site. I saw part of the main Oregon Trail.

We saw an ice cream store--Farson Merc--that sold huge ice cream cones but it was closed for remodeling!

We had a picnic lunch at Farson, Wyoming. The place made me extremely uncomfortable--not the present but the past. I found out later that the Mormons had destroyed two U.S. Army trains and then a third supply train at Farson in 1857. The wagon train contained more than 100,000 individual meals--provisions for the winter. The conflict between the U.S. Army and the Mormons followed the horrific episode known as the Mountain Meadow massacre where an entire well-to-do wagon company of 120 emigrants--men, women and all children over the age of six--had been slaughtered in southern Utah by the Mormons. Only 17 children were spared. The U.S. Army marched against the Mormons so they attacked the U.S. Army supply trains. Ultimately there were no winners in this war but then there never is.

We arrived at Rock Springs Quality Inn. We had free time for a couple hours. I did the research on Farson on the hotel computer. I went to the lounge for Happy Hour--free beer and popcorn. We had a buffet dinner at the Golden Corral Steak House. A few of us did presentations at the Inn’s meeting room. I did a presentation about Dr. John McLoughlin, Chief Factor of Hudson’s Bay Fort Vancouver. We made Corn Husk Dolls.