In order to understand the history of the American West, you need to understand South Pass.
The entire geography of the continental United States funnels into this choke point in Wyoming about 30 miles across. (1/8):
The entire geography of the continental United States funnels into this choke point in Wyoming about 30 miles across. (1/8):
If you were to try to get to Oregon or California in the early 1800s, you would inevitably hit a wall of mountains. Lewis & Clark went up the Missouri and ran into the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana/Idaho. Zebulon Pike ran into the Colorado Rockies about the same time.
Going south wasn't really an option. Heading west out of Santa Fe was some of the most wild and inhospitable land in North America, the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts, as well as the massive red rock gorges of the Colorado River.
But right in the middle there is a break in the mountains. South of the Wind Rivers and north of the Uintahs the Rockies seem to die off for about 100 miles and the landscape turns into high desert badlands.
Most of this 100 mile expanse is called The Great Divide Basin. It's a spot where the Continental Divide widens into a basin where no water flows in or out. It's rocky, alkali, and extremely dry. If you had a team of horses or oxen and tried to cross it, you wouldn't make it.
But if you followed the North Platte River until you hit the Sweetwater, then followed the Sweetwater up to the Continental Divide, you'd find a spot about 30 miles wide between Oregon Buttes and the Wind Rivers where you could get through the Rockies safely. This is South Pass.
Fur trapper rendezvous took place here, the Oregon, Overland, and Mormon Trails passed through here. The Continental Railroad came through here. It was so important that the federal government was paying for road improvements through here in the 1850s, the first in the West.
I-80 runs through it today. You would never notice it if you were just dropped there with no context, but this barren wasteland is still one of the most important transit corridors in the United States and played a key role in the development of our country.
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