Visit Rocky Ridge Monuments, Wyoming

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The Willie and Martin Handcart Companies started out late in the summer of 1856 with 980 people. They got caught in the high plains of Wyoming by an early winter snowstorm that took the lives of 210 people. This was the largest lost of lives of any group of American pioneers, including the famed Donner Party, which lost 39 people out of a party of 87. Hoping for more supply wagons (via a rescue sent from Salt Lake City by Brigham Young), the Willie Company waited until October 23rd before undertaking the worst ordeal of their journey ...the five mile climb over Rocky Ridge in a howling snow storm. The total distance between campsites was approximately twelve miles and it took some emigrants over twenty hours. Wagons and handcarts were taken back to help many that had given up and laid beside the roadside. The morning after the exertion of Rocky Ridge, thirteen bodies were buried in a shallow grave in Rock Creek Hollow. Two of the men that helped dig the grave died that night, and were buried the next morning with the others in the common grave.

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