Bridger Trail

Route

The Bridger Trail split from the Oregon Trail at Red Buttes, near Fort Caspar in central Wyoming, and ran northwest. It went across Badwater Creek close to where Lysite, Wyoming, now sits, then followed Bridger Creek into the Bridger Mountains, which lie just west of the southern Bighorn Mountains. After crossing the range, the route went down the Kirby Creek drainage to its meeting with the Bighorn River near today's Lucerne. From there it went north along the Bighorn River.

At the Nowood River's mouth, it turned northeast toward the Greybull River, crossed the Shoshone River near Powell, and pushed north into Montana. Passing through Bridger Canyon, the trail reached the Clark's Fork Yellowstone River and went downstream past what is now Bridger, Montana, finally linking up with the Bozeman Trail where Rock Creek meets the river, about ten miles south of present-day Laurel, Montana. The two trails then headed west together to the Virginia City gold mines.

The journey could be done in just 34 days, but most wagon trains paused to prospect nearby streams. Compared to the Bozeman Trail, the Bridger Trail offered less grazing and water, making it tougher for wagons.

Remnants

Few remnants of the Bridger Trail survive today. Two sets of carvings of settlers' names are preserved: one on a sandstone cliff face near Bridger Creek, and another at Signature Rock between Byron, Wyoming and Cowley, Wyoming.

The trail was not well-defined in most places, but used a single well-defined path at stream crossings and other terrain-constrained locations, where the most distinct traces survive. Two portions of the Bridger Road are listed on the National Register of Historic Places: the Dry Creek crossing in Big Horn County near U.S. Route 14/16/20 at Bridger Butte, and the Waltman crossing in Natrona County where the road crosses U.S. 20/U.S. Route 26 near Sand Draw and Waltman Draw. Each site encompasses 5 acres and was placed on the National Register on January 17, 1975.