Day 5

October 1, 2013

Fort Caspar closed the day before we got there.  We could go into the museum and walk around the grounds but the actual fort buildings were locked.  The museum is nice and it has a great book store.

At this site was the Platte Bridge built in 1858-59 by Louis Guinard.  It was used by the emigrants.  There were  28 rock filled log cribs on 30 ft. centers spanning 1,000 feet across the river.  

Crib bridges were built for crossing rivers in the Sierras on the trails we work on but they would typically have two or three cribs.  This bridge wasn’t long lived as it burned in 1867. 

River today at Fort Caspar

Buildings at Fort Caspar

At this point in our trip the Government Shutdown hit us.  We drove up the hill to the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center in Casper and the gate was LOCKED!  We had driven all that way and probably wouldn't be back again for a long time, if ever, and it was closed!  

As an alternative we headed east to Douglas, Wyoming and the Wyoming Pioneer Memorial Museum.  It doesn't look like a big museum from the outside but there are six large galleries filled with interesting exhibits.   Glen spent a lot of time looking at the display of guns.  They have a wide selection of early cap and ball rifles and shotguns.  He carefully checks out every wagon we see.  He is always looking for a “real” emigrant wagon.  Here he saw a civil war era military wagon that had lynch pins held in by cotter pins.  Although this wasn't an emigrant wagon he was excited to see the lynch pins. A lynch pin is a tapered pin with a head that secured the wheel onto the axle.  Generally on civilian wagons they were only used up to the early 1850’s.  

Our next stop was the Guernsey Ruts or Deep Rut hill, near Guernsey, Wyoming.  These are really impressive.  There is a paved walkway and signboards leading uphill to the ruts. 

Chloe in the Ruts

Some ruts here are six feet deep in solid sandstone, carved by thousands of wagons going over the hill.  Nearby is the grave of Lucindy Rollins, an emigrant who died in 1849.

Register Cliff is also nearby.  The trail runs right under the cliff. Emigrants carved their names in the soft sandstone.  Unfortunately most have been vandalized and the only dates you can really make out
are from the 20^th century. 

Realizing that Fort Laramie, a place we have always wanted to visit, would be closed due to the shutdown we spent the night at the town of Fort Laramie anyway.  We figured we could at least get a glimpse of the place the next day.  For details on our travels from Fort Laramie to Ogallala, Nebraska return tomorrow.