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Main Street, Wyoming
Main Street, Wyoming
Wyoming's Original Main Street
Airs Monday, February 11 at 9:00 PM
In this edition of Main Street Wyoming, we'll take a look at the discovery of South Pass, and its impact on America's westward expansion. In the early days of the United States the Continental Divide served as a barrier, a wall that blocked its western frontier. Early explorers struggled to find a suitable way to cross this barrier. In 1812, a group of Astorians led by Robert Stuart, travelling from the Pacific Coast of Oregon to St. Louis, trekked through a gap in the Wind River Mountains that came to be known as South Pass.
We'll explore how Jedediah Smith helped utilize South Pass in the implementation of the Fur Trade Rendezvous system, when people found they could bring wheeled wagons over the Pass. Families of missionaries used the Pass on their way to establish missions with Native tribes in the West. Eventually, South Pass became a thoroughfare for pioneers settling in Oregon, California, and Utah. It became Wyoming's Original Main Street.
