Independence at South Pass - South Pass City, Wyoming

Sunset, July, 1999 by Candy Moulton

In South Pass City, Wyoming, Independence Day is big business. Every year at this time, you can down a root beer at a recreated saloon, play poker in a card room, or even pan for gold at Willow Creek.

Given this area's history, it's no wonder the Fourth of July is so celebrated. Settled partly due to the 1868 South Pass City gold boom, the town was at the forefront of the women's suffrage movement; local women encouraged territorial representative William H. Bright of South Pass City to introduce a bill supporting women's suffrage in the state. As a result, Esther Hobart Morris became the nation's first female justice of the peace - in South Pass City - and in 1869 Wyoming women were the first given the right to vote.

South Pass City has since been designated a Wyoming state historic site. What's more, the route that leads there, State 28 from Lander to Farson, takes you over one of the passes that 19th-century wagon train emigrants used en route to Oregon, California, and Utah.

Starting in Lander, take State 28 to Farson, in the heart of the Red Desert. Stop at the overlook about 15 miles south of Lander to see the old stagecoach road at the bottom of Red Canyon. Another 30 miles southwest is the South Pass Overlook; a sign indicates where the emigrant trail crosses the Continental Divide. On the trail itself, a couple of stones and a plaque mark the spot where missionary wives Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spalding made history in 1835 as the first white women to cross the pass.

This year a wagon train will travel the California Trail to commemorate the 1849 California Gold Rush. It will be in the South Pass City area July I through 4.

Three miles east of South Pass City is the Atlantic City Mercantile - built in 1893 as the Giessler Store - where you can order a charbroiled steak and hear the Buffalo Chips play the banjo. When night falls, head out to the porch for the greatest small-town fireworks display in all of Wyoming. Spend the night in one of the Merc's A-frame cabins (from $55), or at the Rock Shop Inn (from $48), adjacent to State 28 just west of the South Pass City turnoff.

WHERE: State 28 from Lander to Farson via South Pass City.

DISTANCE: 77 miles.

CONTACT: Wyoming Division of Tourism; (800) 225-5996. Wind River Visitors Council; (800) 645-6233 or www.wind-river.org. Atlantic City Mercantile; (307) 332-5143. Rock Shop Inn; (307) 332-7396.