Bessemer Bend on the Oregon Trail near Casper, Wyoming

North Platte River at Bessemer Bend west of Casper, Wyoming on the old Oregon Trail

Many travelers chose to pay the ferry toll, thus reducing the number of wagons fording the river at Bessemer Bend after 1847.

In 1856 five Mormon Pioneer handcart companies came this way, enroute to the Great Salt Lake Valley. Among those, The Willie and Martin Handcart Companies left Winter Quarters in the Nebraska Territory ominously late in the summer. Overtaken by a powerful snowstorm on this open landscape in late October, the companies suffered the tragic loss of nearly two hundred men, women, and children.

Many emigrant diaries mention camping in this broad river bottom before starting the 15-mile westward trek to Willow Spring.

Bessemer Bend is a National Historic Site on the North Platte River near Casper, Wyoming

Oregon Trail Marker at Bessemer Bend on the North Platte River west of Casper, Wyoming

While waiting their turn to ford the river, some took time to climb Red Buttes, fish, hunt, and explore the surrounding landscape. Just to the north in 1860 was the Red Buttes Pony Express Station, where riders traveling east and west for the legendary mail service would stop to exchange horses or relay the mail.

Gone are the pioneers on the Oregon Trail that struggled to keep their footing as they forded the cold North Platte River. Gone are the mountain men who used this crossing in the shadows of these Red Bluffs. And gone are the prospectors seeking fortune from the land itself. Gone, but all shared the memory of Bessemer Bend.

Beneath a slate grey sky blowing snow in October 1856, a party of the faithful buried their dead with what frozen strength they could muster. In 1861 a Pony Express rider hurried his mount westward carrying President Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address. A month later, the Pony Express relayed news of the start of the War Between the States to an anxious California.

Each of them saw much of what you see today during their fleeting visit to this bend in the North Platte River.

Oregon Trail Marker at Bessemer Bend on the North Platte River west of Casper, Wyoming

Permanent settlers began claiming this region by the late 1870's, at the end of the Plains Indian wars. The nearby Goose Egg Ranch dates to 1877 when the Searight Brothers Cattle Company trailed more than 20,000 head of cattle into Wyoming Territory. Gilbert Searight filed a homestead claim in 1883 on 640 acres along Poison Spider Creek, just over the ridge north of Bessemer Bend.

The sheep and cattle that grazed here created an economy that encouraged the westward extension of rail lines across Wyoming. Livestock ranged over tens of thousands of acres, with ranchers helping neighbors at roundup time.

Gilbert Searight managed his holdings Goose Egg Ranch from a cut stone ranch house with a complex of rock and log outbuildings.

The "Goose Egg Ranch" and brand is attributed to cowboys who found a goose nest on an island in the North Platte River and delivered the eggs to their cook. Livestock from the Searight Ranch were identified with an oval-shaped "Goose-Egg" brand.

View from Bessemer Bend along the North Platte River west of Casper, Wyoming

The Red Buttes have been a distinctive landmark for centuries. John Fremont and Kit Carson stopped for a midday meal here in the summer of 1842 while mapping and documenting the landscape along the North Platte River. Brigham Young and his followers camped in this area for a week in June 1847 on their journey west. Nine members of the party volunteered to stay a day's travel downstream to construct a ferry that provided a safe means of crossing the river for those that were to follow.

In the late 1800's there was actually a town named Bessemer here at Bessemer Bend. But it has gone away while the Town of Casper about 10-miles downstream has thrived.

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