Across the Continent by the Lincoln HighwayGladding, Effie Price
General
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway
Gladding, Effie Price
Automobile travel; Lincoln Highway; United States -- Description and travel
We left Salt Lake City by driving through Parley's Canyon, a deep gash
in the mountains parallel to Immigration Canyon. It is a favorite local
drive to go out through Parley's Canyon and return to Salt Lake City
through Immigration Canyon. The roadway is very narrow, as it shares the
canyon floor with a railroad track and with a rushing stream, so one
must drive carefully and keep a sharp lookout for trains. We met an
itinerant Baptist missionary driving in his big caravan wagon into the
country for a preaching trip. After leaving Parley's Canyon we came into
open rolling country, and passed the substantial stone buildings of
Stevens Ranch and Kimball Ranch. Then came Silver Creek Canyon, more
open than Parley's Canyon and with a fair road. We had luncheon at the
Coalville Hotel. I was attracted to the little town of Coalville because
there were so many yards where old fashioned yellow rosebushes were
laden with bloom. We drove on through Echo Canyon, whose red sandstone
rocks, chiseled in many forms by wind and weather, have very fine
coloring. At Castle Rock the whole formation is like that of a massive
fortification. Six miles before we reached the town of Evanston, we
crossed the State line and were in Wyoming. It is a pity that these
State boundaries are indicated in many places by such shabby,
indifferent wooden signs, looking as if they had been put up over night.
Doubtless as the Lincoln Highway is improved there will be dignified
boundary stones erected to mark the State lines.
Evanston is a pleasant little town 6300 feet high. Near Evanston is the
Chapman Ranch, where many thousands of sheep are handled. We stopped in
Evanston only a few minutes and then drove on through delightful desert
country, open and rolling, grey-green and blue in its coloring. The
Wyoming desert has a sharper and more vivid coloring than that of
Nevada. The tableland is more rolling and the mountains are farther
away. It is a wonderful sheep country, but the flocks are at present in
the mountain ranges. Later, as the autumn comes on and cold falls upon
their mountain pastures, the herders will bring them down to these
plains over which we are passing.
Mr. Dudley of Alpine Ranch told us that should we visit the ranch in
autumn we would find the whole valley covered with sheep. We heard much
"sheep talk" in Nevada and Wyoming. We learned about the "shad scale"
which the sheep eat, and about certain kinds of sage brush that are very
nutritious. Mr. Dudley had pointed out to us a low-growing white plant,
somewhat like the "dusty miller" of our childhood, that is extremely
nutritious for cattle.
[Illustration: 1. Prairie Schooners, Westward Bound. 2. Lincoln Highway
Sign in the Desert. 3. Sheep in the Wyoming Desert.]
Here and there on the desert we see fine bunches of beef cattle, feeding
in little oases; green, damp stretches of country in the midst of an
ocean of sage brush.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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