Wamsutter

The town began as Washakie, a Union Pacific station named for the Shoshone leader whose people the panel says were pushed out of this basin. In 1884 or 1885 the railroad renamed it, because freight meant for Fort Washakie, on the Wind River Reservation, kept being unloaded here instead. Accounts of the new name disagree: most say a Union Pacific bridge engineer, while an 1885 Carbon County newspaper credited an old Indian chief. Geologists kept the first name for the Washakie Formation, first described from rocks exposed near the station.

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Henry Bourne Joy and the Lincoln Highway — 10 mi