Sand Springs - A Stop on the Oregon Trail

What this road looked like when it was new survives in a single frame. Albert Bierstadt, traveling with Lander's 1859 expedition, is credited with photographing emigrant wagons at Buckskin Crossing on the Big Sandy, the Lander road's ford some miles east of here, among the few photographs of a wagon train from the 1850s. His sketches from the same trip became The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak, the painting that made his name. The New Fork crossing the panel puts ten miles west is now a county historical park on the National Register.

What the plaque says

Sand Springs - A Stop on the Oregon Trail This site is a crossing of the Lander Cut-off, the northern fork of the Oregon Trail. Originally called the Fort Kearney-South Pass-Honey Lake Wagon Road when it opened in 1858, it was the first federally-funded road project west of the Mississippi River. F.W. Lander mapped this new route, shortening the trip to the Pacific by 5 days and avoiding a ferry crossing to the south where price gouging was alleged. Sand Springs was the only reliable water available to emigrants between Muddy Creek, 8 miles to the east, and the New Fork River, 10 miles to the west. Until the coming of the railroad in 1869, up to 300 wagons and thousands of cattle, horses and mules may have passed here in a day. The trail ruts visible behind this sign and continuing over the next ridge are reminders of the largest known voluntary migration in world history. From homesteading in the 1880s until use of the automobile in the 1920s, Sand Springs remained an important watering hole for travelers and stock on the north/south New Fork to Rock Springs wagon road. Public access to Lander Trail ruts is behind you to the east, just across U.S. Highway 191 on Bureau of Land Management ground. Please respect private property and historic artifacts. Sublette County Museum Board

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of the Mountain Man — 19 mi
  Six fur-trade rendezvous met near here on the Green; the only artist who ever saw one, Alfred Jacob Miller, came in 1837.

More markers nearby

• To All Pioneers Who Passed This Way (Sand Springs) — steps away
• Lieutenant J. C. Fremont's Week in Sublette County — 9.0 mi
• A Pause on a Journey — 20 mi
• The Naming of a Lake — 20 mi