The Overland Tales
Chapter 10: Intersects
I am drawn to deserted places. That doesn’t necessarily mean abandoned. Growing up at the Jersey Shore, I spent more winter afternoons on the beaches and boardwalks than summer mornings in the surf. The off- season experience was much more personal. Stormy days were my favorite: the darker the gloom, the more cutting the wind, the harsher the sheets rain, the more likely I could be found huddled in a seaside coffee shop reveling in moments that most people turned away from. I’d sometimes bring friends along, but there weren’t many other teenage dreamers in town who could be lured out by really bad weather.
So, it should come as no surprise that I was instantly drawn to the — almost — ghost town of Carter, Wyoming. Population 10.
A handful of sun-bleached weathered buildings battered by wind — those Wyoming gales that swirl up your pant leg, chill your balls blue and exit out of your collar blowing icy songs of cowboy legends in your ear — lining the busy Union Pacific railroad mainline speak to different eras of Carter’s promise. Yes, there’s the expected classic false front building, but next to it is a brick affair emblazoned with a painting of the American flag.
A scattering of houses and other buildings dot the area where state highway 412, Leroy Road and the railroad converge. One could be forgiven for driving by, thinking “that’s neat” and continuing on their way.
Fortunately, we stopped. Twice.
Wandering around Carter, framing its forlorn elegance for pixel-by-pixel study, I kept thinking “why?” Why has this town almost vanished? And why was it ever built in the first place? I had to find out. I don’t proclaim to be historian extraordinaire of Carter. In fact, there's much of the story I have yet unravel. But I know now why it came to be. The story begins just to the east with the town of Granger,
Immigrants and emigrants have been drawn westward across the United States from the nation’s earliest days, when Ohio was still hard along the left edge of colonists’ maps. As these explorers dispersed throughout the continent, trails - many times already blazed by Native Americans - evolved into wagon roads, railroads, highways and Interstates. The greatest of these transcontinental transportation pathways converged in southwestern Wyoming upon Granger, a lonely flat spot of semi-arid scrub in Sweetwater County, just east of the Uinta County Line. One hundred and forty-or-so souls call the town home today.
The cluster of one-story houses tucked along the junction with the Union Pacific Railroad’s “Overland Route” and “Oregon Short Line” is easy to miss. Granger, by all appearances, is just another small town overpowered by the endless landscape of the American West. And like so many western towns, the highway goes around it. That wasn’t always the case.
Unassuming and humble Granger is one of the most important transportation centers in American history. Don’t remember it from history class? Well, the original name of the settlement was Ham’s Forks. Still doesn’t ring a bell? Same here.
Sturdy wagon wheels of settlers headed west along the Oregon, California and Mormon Trails; hooves of the Pony Express; and Overland Mail stagecoaches all dug into the dirt and mud of Sweetwater and Uinta counties. Granger grew around the fork where the California Trail and Oregon Trail split. Upon arriving in town, the masses of the western migration had to make a decision: head left towards California or right to the Pacific Northwest. As Indian wars and weather conditions pushed other trails out of favor, stagecoach traffic through Granger increased and the Pony Express joined the flow on what became known as the Overland Trail mail route.
Granger was the first major intersection of the far west.
Western stage trails generally followed river valleys, climbing mountain ranges only when absolutely required. Logically, as the transcontinental railroad forged west through Wyoming, survey teams closely followed the alignment of known trails. Thus, in 1868 Granger - a hub of stagecoach roads - became a stop on the Union Pacific Railroad. Three years later the Pony Express was out of business and the stagecoach parade was fading into the history books. Without a hint of irony, the Union Pacific dubbed their new rail line The Overland Route, taking the name of the trail and the stage line it put out of business.
Since trails followed easier routes, and railroads later followed those trails, it makes sense that America’s early highway system did the same. In 1913 the Lincoln Highway came through Granger on its way across America connecting New York City with San Francisco. Later, US Route 30 was established through the area, turning north to roughly parallel to the Oregon Short Line railroad, followed a few decades later by Interstate 80 built along the historic routes of the Lincoln Highway, Union Pacific mainline and Mormon Trail. Though bypassed by the new highways, the busy Union Pacific junction maintains the status of Granger a railroad town.
But what about Carter?
In 1868 the Union Pacific survey team chose a route that exited Granger west along the stage trail to the confluence of Black’s Fork and Muddy Creek. There, the trail bent south along the fork to the bustling trading post at Fort Bridger, while the railroad continued west along the creek. Intentionally or not, the railroad screwed For Bridger and gave rise to a town that would otherwise never be: Carter.
The railroad’s decision didn’t sit well with Judge William A. Carter, a sutler who sold provisions at Fort Bridger (and believed to have become the first millionaire of Wyoming), who apparently had the prescience to realize the railroad’s chosen route was an economic liability for the trading post.
A short road was built connecting Fort Bridger to the Union Pacific, where a new station was established as a transfer point to serve the bypassed communities. The lonely spot where ruts met rails was named in honor of Judge Carter. Despite the road, the importance of Fort Bridger waned along with the stagecoach while the village of Carter hung on as a small railroad town buoyed by the drillings of the Wyoming-Illinois Oil & Shale Company.
A lot went down in Carter over the next 150 years. That’s a story I am still learning. But at least I now know why the town was built.
Read the entire ebook version with many additional photographs
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