Busy Wyoming Stage Coach Station Now Just A Hole

Here is a much forgotten Wyoming site that used to be one of the busiest places in the region.

The Sage Creek Station Site was a way station on the Overland Trail in Carbon County, Wyoming.

It was constructed about 1862 and took up less than an acre.

At its peak, it was one of thirty-one stopping points or waystations in Wyoming along the Overland Trail, the major western transportation route in the United States between the years 1862 and 1869.

Those arriving at the station would see a building of logs with an adobe fireplace and a dirt roof over pole rafters.

That type of construction was typical in those days, using what materials the landscape offered to construct what was needed.

The entire site burned on June 8, 1865. It is said that it was quickly rebuilt.

Today, all that remains of the station are its foundations.

The site was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 6, 1978.

Finding it today is not easy.

All that is left of this one busy Wyoming place are some hints of foundations.

But if you want to see it, go twenty or thirty yards east of the station, and on the north bank of Sage Creek was a well, today only a shallow depression in the ground.

Use the map at this link to begin your search.

That's about it. Nothing much to see anymore.

You can research a little more at this link.

Some ashes may be found at the station site, indicating that the station was burned at least once.

Ever find yourself complaining about potholes on Wyoming interstates?

How about we go back to the time when the stagecoach was king?

Narrow two-rut trails -- I'm really not willing to call them roads -- with massive rocks and holes, among other problems, made traveling by stagecoach a very uncomfortable ride.

But still better than walking.

Wyoming had many stagecoach stops in place to change coaches and horses. Or mules.

Forget what you see in Hollywood movies. Mules pulled most stage coaches because they could travel farther than a horse.

Stage coaches did not run their animals at a full gallop like you see in old West movies unless they were fighting off bandits or Indians.

Some of Wyoming's most famous stagecoach stops are lost to us.

We only know that they were there because history tells us so.

By the way, the next time you run for the passenger seat and yell SHOTGUN, think about where that came from.

But you drive by them as you drive across Wyoming.

You can visit many of these old sites.

A few still have buildings standing and historic markers.

Below is a list of old stations with internet links and directions.

Some of Wyoming's more important stops were: