Union Pass is a high

mountain pass A mountain pass is a navigable route through a mountain range or over a ridge. Since mountain ranges can present formidable barriers to travel, passes have played a key role in trade, war, and both Human migration, human and animal migration t ...

in the Wind River Range in Fremont County of western

Wyoming Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...

in the United States. The pass is located on the Continental Divide between the Gros Ventre mountains on the west and the Wind River Range on the east. A ''triple divide'' exists nearby, where water may flow to the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook language, Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin language, Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river headwater ...

, or

Colorado River The Colorado River () is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The river, the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), 5th longest in the United St ...

. The pass was historically used by Native Americans and early mountain men including the Astor Expedition in 1811 on its way west. On the return trip, fearing hostile Indian activity near Union Pass, the Astorians chose a southern route and discovered South Pass. The pass was named by U.S. Army Captain William F. Raynolds in 1860. Raynolds was in charge of the Raynolds Expedition which was exploring the

Yellowstone Yellowstone National Park is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States located in the northwest corner of Wyoming, with small portions extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U ...

region immediately prior to the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

. After mountain man and guide

Jim Bridger James Felix Bridger (March 17, 1804 – July 17, 1881) was an American mountain man, Animal trapping, trapper, Army scout, and wilderness guide who explored and trapped in the Western United States in the first half of the 19th century. He was ...

led the expedition over the pass, Raynolds gave the pass its current name.

Location

Union Pass is located in the mountains of northwestern

. It is at an elevation of . It is a hub from which three Wyoming Mountain Ranges radiate. The three separate directions – the Wind River Range to the southeast ( Gannett Peak, ), the Gros Ventre Range ( Doubletop Peak, ) to the west and the Absaroka Range to the north ( Francs Peak, ). The pass is lower than mountains around it. This provides easy passage among the headwaters of three river systems, the

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

, the Columbia and the

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

.Union Pass; Nedward M. Frost, historian, Wyoming Recreation Commission; National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form; United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service; Washington, D.C.; April 4, 1969 An unimproved dirt road crosses the pass, connecting U.S. Route 287 near Dubois to U.S. Route 189 in Pinedale.

Native Americans

Reports from the fur trappers who first entered the mountains and those following mention the trail through the pass as being in long term us by the

Shoshone The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ), also known by the endonym Newe, are an Native Americans in the United States, Indigenous people of the United States with four large cultural/linguistic divisions: * Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming * Northern Shoshon ...

, Bannack,

Arapaho The Arapaho ( ; , ) are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota. By the 1850s, Arapaho bands formed t ...

Gros Ventre The Gros Ventre ( , ; meaning 'big belly'), also known as the A'aninin, Atsina, or White Clay, are a historically Algonquian-speaking Native American tribe located in northcentral Montana. Today, the Gros Ventre people are enrolled in the Fort ...

, Flat Head or Bitterroot Salish,

Nez Perce The Nez Perce (; autonym in Nez Perce language: , meaning 'we, the people') are an Indigenous people of the Plateau who still live on a fraction of the lands on the southeastern Columbia River Plateau in the Pacific Northwest. This region h ...

Crow A crow is a bird of the genus ''Corvus'', or more broadly, a synonym for all of ''Corvus''. The word "crow" is used as part of the common name of many species. The related term "raven" is not linked scientifically to any certain trait but is rathe ...

and others. The pass provide access into three river sheds. An east-west route ran from the east up the Wind River valley and provided a western route by the

or Hoback Rivers to the Valley of the

Snake River The Snake River is a major river in the interior Pacific Northwest region of the United States. About long, it is the largest tributary of the Columbia River, which is the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean. Begin ...

in Jackson's Hole. To go south, the traveler would follow the Green River. The Union Pass Route was an extension of a North South Route up the Valley of the Yellowstone. Coming up the Valley of the Thoroughfare, west of the Absaroka Range and south of Yellowstone Lake, the trail followed the North Fork of the Yellowstone. Crossing over Two Ocean Pass, the trail split east and west around Terrace Mountain into the Wind River Valley at DuNoir. From Union Pass south bound travelers could use the Green River Valley to connect east through South Pass or west toward the

Astorians – 1811

John Colter John Colter (c.1770–1775 – May 7, 1812 or November 22, 1813) was a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806). Though party to one of the more famous expeditions in history, Colter is best remembered for explorations he made ...

may have been the first easterner to visit the pass in 1807, but this is based on circumstantial evidence and is disputed by scholars. Wilson Price Hunt, the Astorians overland to the mouth of the Columbia reported crossing Union Pass on September 15, 1811. This is the first record of the pass. The expedition guides were Edward Robinson, John Hoback and Jacob Rizner. Their previous participation in 1809 with the Henry expedition to the source of the

Missouri River The Missouri River is a river in the Central United States, Central and Mountain states, Mountain West regions of the United States. The nation's longest, it rises in the eastern Centennial Mountains of the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Moun ...

and back by way of the Green River it is accepted that the three had been through Union Pass, during the year 1810. File:Union Pass historic marker.jpg, Historical marker describing first crossings. File:Union_Pass.jpg, View of Union Pass File:Union Pass 2017-09- 1336.jpg, Vicinity of the Historic marker for Union Pass on U.S. 26 & U.S. 287 in DuNoir with the Wind River Mtns in the background.

References

Bibliography

*Burton Harris. John Colter, His Years in the Rockies. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York 1952. * Frances Fuller Victor. Eleven Years in the Rocky Mountains and Life on the Frontier. Columbian Book Company, Hartford Connecticut 1877. Published by Subscription. *Webster's Geographic Dictionary—G. & C. Merriam Co. Springfield, Massachusetts, U. S. A.--1964. *Hayden. U. S. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories of Wyoming and Idaho 1878, Part I. Conducted under the authority of the Secretary of the Interior. Washington: Government Printing Office-1883. *Washington Irving. Astoria. Clatsop Edition, Binfords & Mort, Publishers Portland Oregon—undated. *Washington Irving. The Adventures of Captain Bonneville; edited and with introduction (and modern footnotes) by Edgeley W. Todd. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press-1961.

External links