oveela:n 



COUNCIL BLUFFS TO OGDEl^. Gl 



miles. The part of the ridge between Walcott and the point where 



know 



Havstack Hill 



Three 



beds and reaches a formation which has been named the Steele shale/ 

 from its occurrence here. This shale is the same as that which crops 

 out near ]\Iodiciue Bow and extends westward from that place beneath 

 the coal-bearing rocks of the Hamia Basin, 



The toAm of Fort Steele derives its name from Fort Fred Steele^ an 

 army post established here in 1S66 to guard the Union Pacific E ail- 

 road against Indians. At the time of the Meeker 

 Fort Steele. massacre, in the early eighties, it was from Fort Fred 



Elevation 6,505 feet. Steele that the unfortunate force commanded by ^iaj. 



^matalTsS'es. Thomburg was seut to put down the uprising. Maj. 



Thornburg and most of his command never returned. 

 That any of them survived was due to the dispatch of a second expe- 

 dition from the fort to their rehef. There is little about the town 

 now to suggest the troublous Indian times. It serves as a place of 

 supply for sheep herders and for the farms scattered up and down 

 North Platte River wherever the vaUe}^ is wide enough to be culti- 

 vated. The North Platte, from which the raikoad diverged at the 

 city of North Platte, 291 miles west of Omaha, is reached again at 

 Fort Steele, 384 miles west of North Platte and 3,705 feet higher. 



l^rom 



circuitous route to the north until it reaches a point nearly halfway 

 across the State of Wyoming. In this part of its course it cuts through 



Seminoe Mount 



amie iiang 



Seminoe Mountains 



some remarkably picturesciue gorges. Across one of these the United 



amation Service built the Pathihi 



Cj 



creating a reservoir having a capacity of 1,100,000 acre-feet — that is, 



numb 



In 



■m 



be released as needed to irrigate 130,000 acres in eastern Wyoming and 

 western Nebraska. This project, which is not yet 



com 



cost nearly §7,000,000. 



To the left (south) as the train crosses the bridge over the North 



wm 



mountains and floated down 



iU 



many railroad, ties and mine props from timber grown 



H 



1 The iipper'part of the Steele shale is 

 much more sandy near Fort Steele than 

 it h farther east, and several prominent 1 the Mesaverde. 



sandstones lie below the maesive sand- 



hase 



