Historical Marker
Oregon Trail
Platte County · Wyoming
Erected by State of Wyoming, 1913
The date is the program's first season, and the stone is not the type that followed: the words are carved straight into a sandstone pillar rather than set as a panel in rough granite like the 1914 shafts downriver. The water behind it came later. The Bureau of Reclamation began Guernsey Dam on June 1, 1925 and finished it on July 13, 1927, backing the North Platte about fourteen miles up its canyon, and Civilian Conservation Corps Camp BR-9 opened on the bluff above it in May 1934 to build the state park.
What the plaque says
Oregon Trail Marked by the State of Wyoming 1913
Where it stands
42.29810, -104.84641 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Oregon Trail Ruts State Historic Site — 5.7 miThe clearest wagon ruts on the trail, worn by iron tires and cut deeper by travelers who hacked at the ledge to get their wagons over.
- Register Cliff State Historic Site — 7.7 miThe first camp out of Fort Laramie, where the oldest date on the rock reads 1829 and three emigrants never left.
- Fort Laramie National Historic Site — 16 miOld Bedlam, the officers' quarters of 1849, survived the auction that scattered the rest of the post; an 1875 Army bridge still crosses the river.
More markers nearby
- The Oregon Trail — 3.6 mi
- Rifle Pit Hill — 3.6 mi
- Oregon Trail Memorial — 5.8 mi
- Historic Guernsey Area — 5.8 mi