Emigrant Spring was an important stop along the Slate Creek Trail, one of the alternate routes of the Oregon Trail System. This area was heavily used by traveling pioneers as a camping and resting area. The spring provided water for the people and their animals, while the grass that grew nearby provided a comfortable resting place and forage for livestock. Evidence remains of pioneer habitation in this area including wagon wheel ruts and names and dates carved on the sandstone ledges above the spring.

For a town that owed its existence to the railroad, the Oregon Short Line Depot was a centerpiece of the town of Fossil and stands as one of the last remaining visible elements of the town. The depot and most of the town of Fossil moved to its current location in 1902. Also at this time the freight room addition was built onto the building. The depot was a center of activity as freight, mail, and passenger train service linked the town’s residents and trade to other regional centers. During the first half of the twentieth century Fossil was an important shipping center for local cattle and sheep activities. At one time, the town had two hotels, a restaurant, and a school, and had a peak population of 151.

Gateway (48LN348) is comprised of a small concentration of five petroglyph panels that have been incised, abraded, and pecked on several faces of a distinctively-shaped sandstone outcrop located on the highest point of a steep-sided ridge above the confluence of Fontenelle Creek and the Green River. The petroglyphs were created by Native American groups living in, or passing through, the region during the Archaic - Protohistoric periods. The artistic styles present at the site represent the Uncompahgre style, the Ceremonial tradition, the early Biographic Seedskadee style, and Plains Groove rock art tradition. There are 131 distinct images recorded at Gateway. Important cultural elements represented include a battle scene showing two opposing phalanxes of pedestrian warriors carrying full body-sized shields; tool grooves; and elk – many of which are depicted with an arrow piercing their bodies. Some rock art researchers (Keyser and Poetschat 2005a) propose the arrow pierced elk may represent important supernatural significance, possibly representative of “love medicine” rather than hunting. Analyses of the rock art motifs present at Gateway suggest the site functioned in three ways. One function was as a narrative battle scene, representing an actual event. The second function is that of a place where women obtained power, evidenced by the presence of large shallow tool grooves. The third function is as a place where individuals might have come to obtain love medicine. While the three functions are diverse, rock art researchers suggest this wide variation in function is not unexpected for a rock art site with repeated use. The well-preserved distinctive cultural elements at Gateway have great potential to add to our understanding of the Green River Basin and Plains rock art traditions. Tribal consultation and reexamination of the images at the site using multiple advanced imaging techniques could potentially yield additional information important to rock art studies and a better understanding of the site. Gateway is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places under Criteria C and D at the statewide level of significance.

The Haddenham Cabin is located in the southeast portion of Fossil Butte National Monument, 10 miles west of Kemmerer, Wyoming. It is located on the Quarry Trail, which is a 2.5-mile loop leading to the south face of Fossil Butte. The cabin has local significance for its association with the quarrying of fossils in the Green River Formation. The cabin was built by David C. Haddenham ca. 1918 to serve as on-site shelter for himself and his family during their seasonal quarrying work. He actively quarried in the area of the present monument from the late nineteenth century to his death in 1968. From this work he provided universities, museums, and private collectors with specimens of rare fossils dating back 40 million years. The period of significance dates from 1918 to 1950. The cabin was used after the historic era into the 1960s.

The J. C. Penney Historic District is situated near the eastern edge of Kemmerer, Wyoming's business section. James Cash Penney opened his first store, which he named the ''Golden Rule'' in Kemmerer in 1902. By following rigid economies and selling for cash, Penney made substantial profits and eventually established a chain of such stores, which by 1913 were known collectively as the J. C. Penney Company. By 1928, Penney's firm was operating 1, 023 stores and doing an annual business of $176,695,989.14. The secret of Penney's rapid success was the fact the he confined his stores to small communities, refrained from expensive locations, had no fancy fixtures and handled only merchandise that created a general demand. Penney's success in turn spawned a host of imitators. Although several buildings and residences associated with Penney and his company are extant in Utah, Missouri, and New York, the Kemmerer structures are more significant not only because they show the humble origins of the Penney Company, but because it was here that Penney formulated the merchandising ideas which enabled him to create the first truly nationwide department store chain.

Picture on file at the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office

The J. C. Penney Home in Kemmerer is a rectangular, barely two story, gable roof, clapboard building. It is thought that it was already in existence when in 1903 or 1904 the Penney family first occupied it.. It originally was located toward the back of a long and narrow lot of the original townsite of Kemmerer in the commercial district. In the 1970s when the Town acquired a suitable piece of property as a gift from the Union Pacific Railroad Company, the house was moved to a prominent location on the downtown triangle. The house was Penney's home from about 1904 to 1909, the years when the basic organization of his nation-wide store system was formulated.

In southwest Wyoming at the Green River, south of the mouth of the Big Sandy River, a branch of the Oregon Trail splits away from the route to Fort Bridger. The branch follows up the east bank of the Green River to a point just south of the present Fontenelle Dam, crosses the Green and heads west up Slate Creek. Eventually this ''Slate Creek Cutoff'' joins another branch of the Oregon Trail, called the Sublette or Greenwood Cutoff, at a point on Oyster Ridge about twenty miles west of the Green River. A few miles southeast of that junction is Emigrant Springs, a popular campground on the Slate Creek Trail, and a mile south of Emigrant Springs are the Johnston Scout Rocks. It may be that those who broke their journey to rest at Emigrant Springs had to travel some distance down Emigrant Creek before finding a suitable campsite. Hence, Johnston Scout Rocks served as a register for some of those early travelers. Although inscriptions span the years 1850 to 1888, the names of the rock derives from the inscription, ''T.C. Johnston'' and ''1860 Scouts''.

This thematic study includes twelve post offices owned and administered by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) throughout the State of Wyoming. These include the Basin, Greybull, Douglas, Lander, Torrington, Thermopolis, Buffalo, Kemmerer, Powell, Yellowstone, Evanston, and Newcastle Main Post Offices. The buildings represent a continuum of federally constructed post offices allocated to the state between the turn of the century and 1941. The buildings exhibit a variety of styles and sizes but maintain a common demeanor representative of the federal presence. All of the buildings were constructed from standardized plans developed from guidelines provided by the Office of the Supervising Architect in the Treasury Department. Variations in design styles reflect both the transition in the design philosophies of the Supervising Architect and the requirements developed in response to the Depression. These variations in design, as well as functions are also somewhat related to the communities in which they were placed and reflect the economic, political, and governmental context of those communities.

The La Barge Bluffs Petroglyph site consists of nine panels of some of the richest and most expressive rock art in western North America. The rock art occurs on flat, west-facing sandstone surfaces that are located just above an overflow channel of the Green River, downstream from the town of La Barge, Wyoming. The rock art panels cover 215 meters along the bank of this river channel. Images indicate the site was visited by Native American artists starting in the Late Prehistoric period. The rock art reached its artistic height during the Historic period, as seen in the Late Biographic images which show extremely realistic narrative scenes. By finding similarities in the rock art when compared to robe and ledger drawings, the Late Biographic scenes have added valuable information to what rock art researcher James Keyser has termed the Biographic rock art lexicon.

The Lincoln County Courthouse is one of the architectural landmarks within the town of Kemmerer, Wyoming. Constructed in 1925, the Salt Lake City architectural firm of Headlund and Watkins designed the building. Compared with other historic Wyoming courthouses, Lincoln County's structure is unique because of its distinctive neoclassical facade. The mixture of classical detailing, such as the dome and entablature, with the large brick parapet walls is an unusual combination of architectural elements. The Courthouse embodies the distinctive characteristics of Classic Revival construction as adapted to a small western community's tastes and budget. The building is associated with coal development in southwestern Wyoming and the mineral investments which ignited economic growth in the region leading to the eventual establishment of the county seat in Kemmerer.

Names Hill is a series of vertical cliffs rising above the valley floor along the west bank of the Green River. Names Hill is one of three locations most notable along the Oregon-California Trail where emigrants paused to carve their names in soft limestone cliffs. Many of the names are still legible. The most famous name visible today is that of Jim Bridger. The inscription reads ''James Bridger, Trapper, 1844''. Names Hill's earliest reported inscription is 1822. Names Hill must have been known to the early trappers and explorers in the region. Located adjacent to the Green River, it was in the very center of the fur-trade activity. The names ''J.J. Shay - 1825'' and ''Twig - 1832'' are mute testimony of some early day travelers. The first emigrants train to pass Names Hill was probably the Stevens Party of 1844. That year one such emigrant added his name ''T. Bonney'' and the date ''July 25, 1844''.

The old rock church in Auburn, Wyoming is one of the oldest buildings in Star Valley. Permanent settlers moved into Star Valley in 1879. In the spring of 1888 these hardy pioneer farmers and ranchers surveyed the townsite of Auburn into twenty-four, ten acre blocks. In the late summer and fall of 1889, the rock church was erected on the public square in the center of the new townsite. The building served as a place of worship for the Latter-day Saints and a meeting place for the entire community. Activities in the building included dances, plays, operas, parties, bazaars, reunions, picnics and patriotic and holiday celebrations. Three larger houses of worship have been built in succession in Auburn but it is the old rock church which stands as a local landmark. The solid walls symbolize the strengths and values of those who built, live in, and served in the community. The building is a monument to the early pioneers of Star Valley.

The Salt River Hydroelectric Powerplant, constructed in 1938, is located along the valley floor of the Salt River in Lincoln County, Wyoming. The powerplant was built along the Salt River to take advantage of a steady supply of water. The powerplant site contains four architectural features: a concrete inlet structure which directs water into three steel penstocks which lead to the powerplant, the powerplant building, a concrete overflow spillway, and a trailrace canal. The site is significant for its industrial contribution to the development of the Star Valley region. The construction of the Salt River Powerplant was the first effort to provide electricity to the entire area of Star Valley using Rural Electric Association funds. During the Depression years the state of Wyoming benefited from the expansion of electrical services into rural areas, largely due to efforts of Rural Electric Associations. These associations, subsidized by the Federal Government as part of Franklin Roosevelt's ''New Deal'', helped expand electrical service to ranches and farms throughout rural America, and made a major impact on the way these people lived. This hydroelectric plant remained in operation until 1967, and for 30 years it served as the principal source of electricity for the entire area.