Where Wyoming’s Heritage Still Lives
During the westward migration of the 1800s, the Wyoming Range forced pioneers on the Oregon Trail to take long detours. But n 1857, Frederick Lander blazed an alternative route across the range at Thompson Pass. The famous Lander Cutoff, the first western wagon road commissioned by the federal government, carried 13,000 immigrants its first year. Many pioneers didn't make it, and their marked graves still sit along the route, as do visible ruts of wagon wheels. Before the arrival of white explorers and pioneers, the Wyoming Range was home to Native Americans, who left evidence of prehistoric use at least 6,000 years ago, mostly summer hunting grounds. Europeans began arriving in the 1820s, trappers and mountain men who traded furs and beaver pelts from the range.
People with vision set aside the Wyoming Range as public land more than 100 years ago. The diverse, sustainable, and traditional uses of the area, such as ranching, outfitting and recreation, are threatened by oil and gas development. 
—Ben and Barb Franklin, Daniel residents
By the end of the 19th century, small ranching communities sprang up near the mountains. Between 1910 and 1930, demands for timber to build the railroads brought men known as tie-hackers into the Wyoming Range. As word of the Wyoming Range's renowned big game hunting spread, outfitters such as the Box Y Ranch on the Greys River were established by the 1940s. Today, outfitting continues to be a way of life for many families. After more than a century of agricultural use, the Wyoming Range continues to support an active ranching lifestyle on the open range. On the mountains’ east slope, the Big Piney Ranger District manages a significant amount of grazing acreage from Beaver Rim down to Riley Ridge just south of South Piney Creek.