Bozeman Trail

This stone was set by the Tongue River crossing in 1914, when Ranchester had been an incorporated town for three years. The Burlington came through in 1894, and the town grew around a tie mill fed by a flume some thirty-five miles long, built down out of the Bighorns at the cost of at least seven lives. S. H. Hardin, an Englishman who owned the O-4 Bar, named it, joining ranch to the chester of the towns at home. The railroad cancelled its tie contract in 1912, two years before the state came to mark the old road.

What the plaque says

Bozeman Trail Marked by the State of Wyoming 1914

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Connor Battlefield State Historic Site — 3.4 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.
• Trail End State Historic Site — 14 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 — 15 mi
  A hunting-lodge hotel with sixty-nine gables, where Buffalo Bill is said to have auditioned Wild West acts from the porch.
• Rosebud Battlefield State Park — 26 mi
  The ridges where Crook's column was stopped eight days before the Little Bighorn, remembered by the Cheyenne for one woman's ride.

More markers nearby

• Tongue River Crossing — steps away
• First Woman Mayor in Wyoming — 2.2 mi
• The Battle of Tongue River — 3.3 mi
• Connor Battlefield State Park — 3.4 mi