The Pioneer Trails of Wyoming

This blog post was originally created and published as a feature length video featuring Junior Ranger Leif on our Solstice Quest YouTube channel. Watch it here!

Hi. I’m Junior Ranger Leif Silva and today I’m continuing my epic journey across the Oregon, Mormon, and California Trails and the Pony Express in Wyoming.

In my first post of this series, we had just arrived out West for an epic five week Every Kid Outdoors National Park summer adventure with a goal of completing 40 Junior Rangers. We got up super early in Baltimore, Maryland and by the end of my first day I had already completed three Junior Rangers! And, after a bumpy ride in an authentic Conestoga wagon, got to camp out overnight on the actual Oregon Trail outside of Casper, Wyoming.

This morning, after a spectacular sunrise along the banks of the North Platte River, I headed out east along the Trail.

The Pioneer Trails of the Great Plains

Though different people traveled these routes for different reasons in slightly different time periods throughout history, the Oregon, Mormon, and California trails and the Pony Express shared the same route through this area of Wyoming.

The first emigrant wagon trail set off from Independence, Missouri in 1841 along the Oregon Trail.

At the South Pass in western Wyoming, an area called the “Parting of the Ways” presented a choice for the travelers. While many pioneers headed north towards Oregon’s Willamette Valley, others headed south and west towards California.

In 1848, gold was discovered in California, and a rush of young men hoping to “strike it rich” set out on the trail. The trail provided access to numerous new gold sites that were discovered over the years, which I’ll talk more about in my future posts when we visit some of these places. Many of the California Gold Rush travelers also set out west in the hopes of avoiding having to fight in the American Civil War which began in 1861.

Today, in addition to finishing the California Historic Trail Junior Ranger, we’ll stop at two other sites. Guernsey State Park and nearby Fort Laramie National Historic Site each have their own separate Junior Rangers, and if you complete them both you receive a special patch, certificate, and commemorative collector’s coin in addition to the Junior Ranger badges.

Because we were traveling east to west, we reached the town of Guernsey first, but the two Junior Rangers can be completed in either order.

To complete the Guernsey State Park Junior Ranger, you need to make a few stops outside of the park first.

Register Cliff

Register Cliff is a large rock wall outside of the town of Guernsey where pioneer travelers would carve their names and dates of arrival into the cliff as they passed through the area. The primary purpose was to notify your family members who might be months or years behind you on the trail that you had successfully made it that far. The oldest signature I could find was from 1842!

Unfortunately, over the years many modern people have damaged this amazing historical artifact by carving their own names into the rock overtop those of the pioneers.

Though this was the only way for pioneers in the mid 1800s to leave messages for their loved ones, today you can easily send your family a postcard, an email, or snap a selfie at Register Cliff to let your friends know that you were here. Please don’t destroy this irreplaceable piece of history by carving your name into it!

To complete the Guernsey State Park Junior Ranger, you will need to answer some questions about Register Cliff. The information can be found on the informative signpost and by walking along the rock wall for a short distance. It was 105 degrees when we were there and there is no shade, so be sure to bring water and sun protection for this part of your journey!

Oregon Trail Ruts

The next stop is at the Oregon Trail Ruts outside of Guernsey. There are many places along the length of the Oregon Trail where you can still find trail ruts, but this area has very deep ruts carved into the rock by the tens of thousands of wagons that travelled through here.

The ruts are located on top of the hill just a short hike from the parking lot. Just like at Register Cliff, it is very hot and sunny here so bring some water with you on the trail. It’s worth the hike to see the ruts. When I stood in the middle of the ruts, they were taller than me!

The information you need to answer the Junior Ranger questions are located on an information sign near the parking lot.

Guernsey State Park

When you have completed the information for the Oregon Trail Ruts and Register Cliff, you’ll need to head into Guernsey State Park to finish the rest of the booklet and receive your Junior Ranger. There is a small entrance fee to get into the park. If you don’t already have it, you can get a free copy of the Junior Ranger booklet by asking for it at the entrance station when you pay to enter the park.

The park itself is more than 8,600 acres, the highlight of which is Lake Guernsey, a large reservoir that was formed when the Guernsey Dam was built along the North Platte River in 1927. You’ll drive over the dam itself as you are headed to the museum and it is really a neat site to see. You can go fishing or even swim in the lake.

We saw lots of kids splashing and having fun on the beach of the lake. After all that hiking in 105 degree temperatures, it sure looked cool and refreshing! But I was on a mission to complete the Junior Ranger!

The Guernsey museum is located at the top of the hill overlooking a section of the reservoir. On a clear day you can see all the way to Laramie Peak from the front door of the museum, the highest peak in the Laramie Range standing at over 10,000 feet. Unfortunately for us, the smoke from summer wildfires made it hard to see.

The museum itself is in a building that was constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1936. The CCC was created during the Great Depression by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to help get jobless men back to work by providing land conservation projects. Many of the national parks I have visited have structures, touring roads, and other improvements in them that were the work of the CCC.

We spent about an hour inside the museum completing the rest of the Junior Ranger booklet. I got my Junior Ranger badge, and I got to sign my name to the giant register booklet just like a pioneer signing their name to Register Cliff!

Fort Laramie National Historic Site

Next we headed off to Fort Laramie National Historic Site. The fort was first built as a trading post in 1834 under the name of Fort William and then Fort John. The Lakota Sioux traded buffalo robes for manufactured goods.

By 1849, the number of pioneers along the trail had grown, and the US Army purchased the fort and renamed it after the nearby Laramie River.

Soldiers were stationed here to guard the trails and make sure that supplies could get to the many wagon trains passing through. The size of the fort grew as housing for the soldiers was expanded and stores like a bakery, general store, a surgeon’s medical clinic, and a post office were built to provide services for the pioneers passing through.   

The Pony Express

Fort Laramie was also a station for The Pony Express. The ponies and their riders could deliver mail from St. Joseph, Missouri to San Francisco, California in ten days, a task that took up to 40 days previously. They would hand off their message to the next rider every 75 miles at a station like Fort Laramie.

The Pony Express only existed for 19 months between 1860 and 1861 because the transcontinental telegraph was completed in October of 1861 making the Pony Express obsolete. I learned a lot about the Pony Express at the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center in Casper.

The Treaty of Fort Laramie and the Sioux War

In my last post, I explained that in the early days of pioneer travel, the Native Americans were very friendly to the emigrants. They viewed them as just another “tribe” to trade with and frequently helped them to navigate the harsh terrain.

Sadly, over the years as more and more pioneers came through the area, this friendly relationship came to an end.

Our Historic Trails West guide Morris had explained that while most of the Native American tribes were very helpful to the pioneers, a few saw an opportunity to try to steal goods from the vulnerable travelers. Not understanding that this was only a few people, the pioneers became distrustful of all Native Americans – even the ones that were trying to help them! The pioneers began attacking the tribes and shooting at them as soon as they saw them, even if they were friendly tribes.

Of course, the tribes no longer wanted to help the pioneers after that!

In 1851, Congress created the Horse Creek Treaty. Over 10,000 Northern Plains Indians gathered at Fort Laramie to sign and witness the treaty. They agreed not to interact with the pioneer trails in return for $50,000 worth of goods given to them each year by the US Government.

This agreement lasted two years before attacks near the fort ended in deaths on both sides and broke the treaty.

Over the following decade, warfare between the Native American tribes and the US government over land disputes became common. In 1868, the Treaty of Fort Laramie was signed here, establishing the Great Sioux Reservation in South Dakota and Montana.

Sadly only a few years later, General Custer and his soldiers discovered gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota and they broke the treaty, resulting in the start of the Sioux War.

I’ll write more about that in future posts when we travel into South Dakota.

I enjoyed visiting Fort Laramie so early on during my Junior Ranger journey for this trip because it helped me to better understand the events that occurred at the historical sites that I visited later on such as Fort Buford, the site of Sitting Bull’s surrender in North Dakota after the Sioux War, and Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, the site of Custer’s Last Stand.

It’s end of the second day of my Every Kid Outdoors epic summer roadtrip, and I’ve completed four more Junior Rangers! Tomorrow, I’ll complete my time on the Mormon Trail with visits to Scotts Bluff National Monument and Chimney Rock National Historic Site. And who knows, maybe I’ll see you out there!