Bozeman Trail

Whether the Bozeman Trail passed where this stone stands is not settled. The local historian Glenn Sweem placed the main route to the east, across Goose Creek and out Soldier Creek toward the Tongue; what crossed Little Goose Creek here was the army's cutoff of 1866 to 1868. The town came after the wars, organized to serve travelers on the old road, and lost the county seat to Sheridan in an 1888 runoff. The Burlington passed it by in 1892, and its false-front main street is probably the densest left in Wyoming.

What the plaque says

Bozeman Trail Marked by the State of Wyoming 1914

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Trail End State Historic Site — 8.5 mi
  A Texas trail hand's Flemish Revival mansion, five years in the building, that he barely lived in once Wyoming sent him to the governor's office and the Senate.
• Sheridan Inn — 9.0 mi
  A hunting-lodge hotel with sixty-nine gables, where Buffalo Bill is said to have auditioned Wild West acts from the porch.
• Fort Phil Kearny State Historic Site — 13 mi
  A Bozeman Trail fort whose wood trains were attacked for two years, and the wagon-box corral where its woodcutters held out behind new breech-loaders in 1867.
• Connor Battlefield State Historic Site — 18 mi
  In 1865 General Connor's troops attacked Black Bear's Arapaho village here while many of its men were away; women and children died with the warriors.

More markers nearby

• O. P. Hanna Cabin Marker and Sundial — 0.7 mi
• The Bozeman Trail and the Goose Creek Valley — 4.4 mi
• Sheridan — 4.4 mi
• Bozeman Trail — 8.0 mi