Utah 4x4 Historic Trails - The Outlaw Trail Part VI

In the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, a little too much dynamite was used to get the safe open during the train robbery at Table Rock. In reality, it took three tries to get the safe open, and in the process the rail car was blown apart.

A mile or so east of Table Rock is where the train robbery occurred on August 29, 1900. The track between Tipton and Table Rock is an uphill grade. After taking on water at Tipton, the engineer was building up steam for the grade up Table Rock. A masked man came down behind him from the tinder and told him to stop the train when he saw a fire beside the track. The passenger cars were uncoupled, and the train was pulled ahead with the express car

That location is at the southern edge of an area called the Great Divide Basin. The Continental Divide splits and goes around it. There is no river outlet from the basin to either the Atlantic or Pacific oceans. It consists of miles and miles of more miles and miles. The basin consists of blowing sand, huge sand dunes, and the occasional oil well. Although it is beautiful in its own way, the Great Divide Basin is described by most as a barren wasteland.

We left Table Rock about midafternoon and headed north across the middle of the Great Divide Basin. There are some landmarks along the way such as Bastard Butte, Five Fingers Butte, and Buffalo Hump, but you won't notice them unless you make a special effort to do so. The basin is about 100 miles wide east to west and 50 miles wide south to north, so there is no sense of being in a basin; however, the sense of isolation is overwhelming.

Two hours had gone by before we exited the basin on the northern boundary. A historic marker for the California Trail was the first indication that we were no longer in it. Herds of grazing sheep caused us to stop and wait while they took their time moving out of the way.

The glow of the setting sun reminded us that it had been a long day. We turned onto the Mormon Trail and drove east past the Willie Handcart Historic Site at Rock Creek Hollow. We continued along the Mormon Trail to a terrific campsite a few miles east of Rock Creek Hollow. There was a lot of cattle in the area but they mostly stayed near the springs where grass and trees were plentiful.

The next morning, we returned to Rock Creek Hollow and explored the site. A historic marker describes it as follows:

Captain James C. Willie's Handcart Company of Mormon emigrants on the way to Utah, greatly exhausted by the deep snows of an early winter and suffering from lack of food and clothing, had assembled here for reorganization by relief parties from Utah, about the end of Octorber, 1856. Thirteen persons were frozen to death during a single night and were buried here in one grave. Two others died the next day and were buried nearby. Of the company of 404 persons, 77 perished before help arrived. The survivors reached Salt Lake City on November 9, 1856.

There were actually five Handcart Companies and two oxen wagon trains that used this trail in 1856. All of them were staged in Iowa City at different times where they acquired the handcarts and needed supplies. All of them traveled to the Mormon outpost in Florence, Nebraska (Omaha), where they made repairs and resupplied. Once those tasks were completed, they left Florence and began the long journey to Salt Lake City.