Joe and Pat Garner, whose pictures I posted yesterday, have done so much to provide things for us to do this week. Today they scheduled a park ranger from the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center to take those who wanted to go (signed up) on a driving tour to some of the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trail locations in the area. We had a wonderful day with our guide, Shawn.
 |
| The vehicles lining up at the fairgrounds as we prepared to head over to the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center to meet up with our guide. |
We drove a few miles east of Casper toward the town of Glenrock to our first stop, to learn about Alvah Unthank.
 |
| Alvah Unthank died of cholera on July 2, 1850. He was part of a party traveling to seek gold in California |
http://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/alvah-unthank-grave
If you follow that link, you will see pictures of his headstone and foot stone, and more information about him... one thing that I found particularly interesting:
About a week before Alvah died, on the morning of June 25, 1850, he and his company had passed Register Cliff,
where Alvah stopped briefly to inscribe his name: “A.H. Unthank 1850.”
No other company member’s name is found in the lists of inscriptions for
the site.
Seventeen years later, Alvah’s cousin, Oliver Nixon
Unthank, son of John Allen Unthank, the uncle who left Alvah and the
Newport Company at St. Joseph, inscribed his name under Alvah’s: “O.N.
Unthank 1867.” Oliver was a civilian telegrapher for the U.S. Army at Fort Laramie. The third Unthank in the group is “O.B. Unthank 1931.” Oliver Brandon Unthank, a salesman living in Sheridan, Wyo., was the son of Oliver Nixon Unthank.
We couldn't go to the gravesite for Alvah Unthank (it was on private property just up the hill from where the information plaque was).
We visited a housing development in Glenrock through which the Trails passed. There was a small park dedicated to the memory of the folks who traveled the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails.
 |
| Our guide - note the names of the streets in this development are "Oregon Trail" and "Pioneer Place". |
 |
| Now... you're supposed to see the ruts from the trail... uhm... I guess... |
 |
| We also stopped at Deer Creek Station in Glenrock... |
 |
| This was the site of the stage and telegraph station - where the pony express riders went through. |
Shawn told us that they re-enact the Pony Express every year in this area - one year traversing west and the next year traversing east. You can have a piece of mail postmarked and carried by the riders. They do it in about the same amount of time as the original riders: 10 days to traverse about 2000 miles.
 |
| We also visited Rock in the Glen where many of the trail travelers left their mark. |
 |
| Rock in the Glen |
 |
| We thought this might be one of the inscriptions... but not sure! |
 |
| We visited Ada Magill's resting place... |
 |
| We stopped off at a farm/ranch that the Oregon-California Trail went through - this is the marker that identifies the rout - and you might be able to see an indention in the land to the right of center where the trail went. |
 |
| There were some pronghorns in the field near where the trail went through. |
 |
| My sweetie took a picture of his honey... |
 |
| We finished the day at the location where "Reshaw's Bridge" had crossed the North Platte River. |
 |
| A reconstruction of the bridge |
 |
| A view across to where the bridge would have ended on the other bank. |
http://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/reshaws-bridge
We had a good day and learned a lot!
No comments:
Post a Comment