One segment of the historic Bridger
Trail was recorded in Fremont County. It is along the gentle slope
of a ridge between upper Bridger Creek and South Bridger Creek.
This
is near the top of the Bridger Mountain Range north of the town
of Lysite.
The trail segment was evaluated for
its eligibility to the National Register of Historic Places. This
is a measure of how important and unique the site is. The Bridger
Trail as a whole is eligible for listing on the National Register
because of its significance as an interregional transportation
route through Wyoming's Big Horn Basin to the Montana gold fields
and because of its association with mountain man and guide, Jim
Bridger. This segment in particular was recommended as contributing
to the site's overall National Register eligibility. The trail
in this area retains good overall physical integrity characterized
by a gentle swale, and the surrounding viewshed possesses excellent
integrity of location, setting, feeling, and association due to
the lack of man-made intrusions on the landscape.
The recording and evaluation was
done to mitigate effects to the trail that resulted from the construction
of the Express Pipeline in Wyoming. The cultural resource mitigation
for the site also included large-scale photographic documentation
of the
segment,
a published monograph on the Bridger Trail,
and placement of an interpretive sign along the east side of Wyoming
State Highway 16/20 north of Lucerne, Wyoming.
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