Red Buttes

Red Buttes was where westbound wagons left the North Platte for the dry pull to the Sweetwater, and the ford at the bend let emigrants skip the tolls at the Mormon ferry downstream. The flat beside it once wanted to be a county seat. Boosters platted Bessemer in 1888, forty-nine blocks with a lot kept for a hoped-for capitol, and in the county-seat vote the precinct returned 731 votes for Bessemer to Casper's 353, until someone noticed it had cast more ballots than it had people. Its votes were thrown out and Casper won.

What the plaque says

Red Buttes of Oregon Trail fame where westward travelers left the North Platte River. A tribute to pioneer emigrants from Casper Literary Club 1930

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Caspar Museum — 9.2 mi
  The crossing before the fort: the Mormon ferry of 1847 and Guinard's toll bridge of 1859, rebuilt beside the 1936 log station.

More markers nearby

• The Oregon Trail — 1.9 mi
• Battle of Red Buttes — 5.8 mi
• Oregon Trail — 9.2 mi
• The Pony Express — 9.2 mi