Wyoming, Fremont County, near Lander
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To the south stand the Oregon Buttes, a major trail landmark. The name is significant because the Buttes were roughly the beginning of the Oregon Territory and also helped keep emigrants encouraged, even though there were still hundreds of miles of rough going ahead. Today, the Oregon Buttes are an Area of Critical Environmental Concern because of their cultural significance and important wildlife values.
About twelve-miles to the southwest of Oregon Buttes is the Tri-Territory site. This site is the location where the Oregon Territory, Mexican Territory, and Louisiana Purchase had a common boundary. The large landmark, just to the south of where you are standing, is Pacific Butte. The great height and mass of the butte, combined with a ridge to the north paralleling the emigrant trails, helps to create a visual channel through which travelers migrated on their way through South Pass.
(Roads & Vehicles • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
To the south stand the Oregon Buttes, a major trail landmark. The name is significant because the Buttes were roughly the beginning of the Oregon Territory and also helped keep emigrants encouraged, even though there were still hundreds of miles of rough going ahead. Today, the Oregon Buttes are an Area of Critical Environmental Concern because of their cultural significance and important wildlife values. About twelve-miles to the southwest of Oregon Buttes is the Tri-Territory site. This site is the location where the Oregon Territory, Mexican Territory, and Louisiana Purchase had a common boundary. The large landmark, just to the south of where you are standing, is Pacific Butte. The great height and mass of the butte, combined with a ridge to the north paralleling the emigrant trails, helps to create a visual channel through which travelers migrated on their way through South Pass.
(Roads & Vehicles • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
South Pass was discovered in 1812 by a small band of Astorians led by Robert Stuart as they traveled east with dispatches for John Jacob Astor. It was “rediscovered” in 1824 by a party led by Jedediah Smith as they searched for a winter crossing through the Wind River Mountain Range. William Sublette led a small caravan of wagons to South Pass in 1828. While the party did not take the wagons over the pass, they proved that wagon travel was possible. 
George W. Parks, Jr. (1906-1983), lived a life of service to the community. He was instrumental in the creation of Howard Park, the baseball field, and the city swimming pool, but more important than the physical reminders of his works is the impact he had on the people and quality of life in Roscoe.
The Bankhead National Highway, from Washington, D.C. to San Diego, California, was the nation’s first all-weather, coast-to-coast highway. The southern road skirted the western mountains and was largely free from ice and snow, so it could be used reliably year-round. It was named for Alabama Senator John H. Bankhead, author of the Federal Highway Act of 1916, which provided federal aid to states for highway construction.
The Roscoe, Snyder & Pacific Railway was one of the country’s most successful short-line railroads. Chartered on Oct. 1, 1906, by General F.W. James and a group of Abilene businessmen, it ran from Roscoe to Snyder and Fluvanna, though in 1941 the Fluvanna line was discontinued. Once it was completed, Ed S. Hughes and H.O. Wooten took over the operation. Wooten saved it from a financial crisis by making deals with California produce shippers and with the Santa Fe and Texas & Pacific railroads to use the line as a link between them. In 1967, the company was sold to the Murchison Brothers of Dallas and Roger Mize of Snyder. The deregulation of railroads in 1980 resulted in its closing in 1984. Nevertheless, it was a major factor in Roscoe’s settlement and growth.
Old 
The Oregon Trail 
Holy Mass 
Rev. Pierre DeSmet (1801-1873) was born in Belgium but came to America in 1821, joined by the Jesuit Society and began his work with the Indians. In his work, he established 16 treaties, crossed the ocean 19 times and traveled 180,000 miles on his errands of charity for the Indians who knew him as “The Sincerest Friend”. On July 5, 1840, in the presence of 2,000 Indians, trappers and traders he offered the first Holy Mass in what is now Wyoming on an alter of native stone decorated with wild flowers. In Father DeSmet’s own words: “It was a spectacle truly moving to the heart of a missionary that his immense family, composed of so many different tribes should prostrate themselves in equal humility before the “Divine Host.” The monument of this site was erected in 1925 and a commemorative Mass is offered in July. On July 4, 1940, the 100th anniversary of the first Mass, a Pontifical high mass was offered by the Most Rev. Bishop McGovern assisted by more than 30 priests and attended by about 2000 people.
Buried on Fontenelle Creek, exhumed 1897, taken to the U.S.Circuit Court at St. Louis, Mo., returned by a court order to Sublette County, Wyoming to be buried here July 27, 1935. 
To 
Names Hill is one of three prominent sites in Wyoming where travelers inscribed their names into stone along the emigrant trails. The other sites are Register Cliff and Independence Rock. After crossing a 40 miles stretch of waterless desert, wagon trains would stop and camp near the Green River crossing, providing an opportunity for travelers to inscribe their names into the soft limestone. 
The river below is the Green. The mountains to the west are the Wyomings (Bear Rivers). Those to the the east, the Windrivers. Along the river banks below are the Rendezvous sites of 1833, 1835 (New Fork), 1836, 1837 (Cottonwood), 1839, 1840 and Fort Bonneville. Trappers, traders and Indians from throughout the west here met the wagons from the east to barter, trade for furs, gamble, drink, frolic, pray and scheme. The Indians, Deleware and Iroquois brought in by the Hudson Bay Company, Snakes, Bannocks, Gros Ventre, Flatheads, Nez Perce, Crows and Chinoocks here made the their first contact with the white man. The warring Blackfeet did not participate. The Rocky Mountain Fur Company, Hudson Bay Company, Captain Bonneville, Wyeth and free trappers controlled the trade. The people of God, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, Mr. and Mrs. Spalding, Samuel Parker, Father Desmet, Jason Lee, and W.H. Gray tempered the hilarity. Jim Bridger, Milton and Bill Sublette, Tom Fitzpatrick, Joe Walker, Joe Meeks, Kit Carson, Baptiste Gervais, Bob Jackson, Moses (Black) Harris, Lucien Fontenelle, Etinne Provot, Henry Fraeb, Andy Dripps, Robert Campbell, Henry Vandenberg, Sir W.D. Stewart and the artist A.J. Miller all were part of this and left their names imbedded in the annals of the west. Scattering for the value of a beaver plew and to see what was beyond the horizon, their trails became the highways of an empire at the const of many a violent death.
Peter Skene Ogden was born at Quebec in 1794. He explored Central Oregon for the Hudson's Bay Company in 1825 and in December of that year discovered Crooked River not far from this spot. He died at Oregon City in 1854.
Betsy Doyle 
