Split Rock

The stone stands a few miles west of the rock, and the station it names lies across the river, in a hay meadow on the Sweetwater's south bank. Russell, Majors and Waddell built a stage station there in 1859, kept by a French-Canadian named Plante. In 1862, as Shoshone and Bannock bands raided stations along the Sweetwater and cut the telegraph, about fifty soldiers of the 6th Ohio camped at it, and that summer the mail stage moved south to the Overland Trail. A log building and pole corral from the station stand in a private ranch homesite.

What the plaque says

Split Rock A famous natural landmark used by Indians, trappers, and emigrants on the Oregon trail. Site of Split Rock pony express 1860-1861, stage, and telegraph station is on the south side of the Sweetwater. Split Rock can be seen as a cleft in the top of the Rattlesnake Range. Erected by the Historical Landmark Commission of Wyoming 1956

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sun Ranch and Devil's Gate — 20 mi
  Tom Sun's 1872 cattle ranch at Devil's Gate, sold in 1996 to the church for whom the cove nearby is sacred, and the fight over who should hold that cove.

More markers nearby

• Jeffrey City: Biggest Bust of Them All — 12 mi
• The Pioneer Women — 20 mi
• The Oregon Trail — 20 mi
• Tom Sun Ranch — 20 mi