photo courtesy of www.mendosa.com
Dave Walsh 3 Feb ’16
This Wonder served as a landmark for emigrant travelers, and pioneer aviators too. It was visible for miles for the emigrants along the Oregon Trail, sitting atop White Mountain. It served as a guidepost separating the South Pass trails and the Overland Trail, crossing through southwestern Wyoming.
Its name actually appears on fur trade maps of the 1830’s, but this important landmark was a welcome sight to hundreds of thousands of travelers during the Great Migration, and even more so to those going east in the 1860’s. And its name became even more well-known in the early days of those fearless pilots flying the first airmail routes across the country. They all knew they were on the right path when they spotted Pilot Butte.
Here’s a landmark that served emigrants and pilots, trappers and pony express riders. There’s a Pilot Butte Emigrant Trails Interpretive Site today, located just 12 miles southwest of Farson, Wyoming, on Highway 28, where one can step back in time and gain a perspective of what life may have been like along the emigrant trails a century-and-a-half ago.
Pilot Butte, an historic Wonder of Wyoming.