Oregon Trail landmarks (Independence Rock, Devils Gate, Register Cliff) sit in sage prairie, not mountain country
— — the trail kept low, where the grass and the water were.
Not only on a wall.
“Three landmarks the wagons aimed for: Independence Rock, a 130-foot granite turtleback in the sage near the Sweetwater; Devil's Gate, the narrow gorge the river cut through the Rattlesnake Range four miles on; and Register Cliff, a soft sandstone wall above the North Platte near Guernsey, carved with the names of the people who passed. None of it is mountain country. The trail kept low — sage, grass, water, sky — and the rocks are what was there to climb, to squeeze through, to leave a name on. from the studio
Oregon Trail landmarks (Independence Rock, Devils Gate, Register Cliff) sit in sage prairie, not mountain country, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Three Oregon Trail landmarks strung across central and eastern Wyoming, all in open sage prairie rather than mountain country. Independence Rock is a granite dome about 130 feet high and a mile around, rising out of the sagebrush near the Sweetwater River in Natrona County. Devil's Gate, four miles southwest, is a narrow gorge cut by the Sweetwater through the Rattlesnake Range, roughly 330 feet deep. Register Cliff is a 100-foot sandstone bluff above the North Platte River near Guernsey in Platte County, about 175 miles east. All three sit between roughly 4,300 and 6,000 feet of elevation.
Two different rocks, two different kinds of mark. Independence Rock is hard Precambrian granite; pioneers chiselled, painted in axle grease, or tarred names onto it from the 1840s on, and thousands survive. Father Pierre-Jean De Smet read Mass on it in 1840 and called it "the great register of the desert." Register Cliff above the North Platte is soft Brule sandstone, easy to carve with a knife, and the wall holds dated names from the same emigrant decades — many from 1843 to 1869 — preserved now behind protective fencing.
Independence Rock is a Wyoming State Historic Site on WY-220 about 55 miles southwest of Casper, with a rest area, restrooms, and a short walking loop around the base. Devil's Gate is six miles west on the same road, viewed from a turnout above the Mormon Handcart Visitor Center at the Sun Ranch. Register Cliff is a Wyoming State Historic Site three miles south of Guernsey, off US 26. All three are free, day-use only, and exposed; summer afternoons run hot and the wind is constant.