In the Shadow of Chimney Rock
In our Jan/Feb 2004 issue, writer/photographer Curt Arens explores Chimney Rock and the nearby community of Bayard. Though the spire-shaped rock is perhaps the most recognizable landmark in the state, Curt learned that you see it differently when it see up close, from a wagon trail, like the pioneers did. Here's an excerpt from his story:
The old wagon creaked as we stepped lightly from weathered floorboards onto a soft green mat of prairie grass.
“Watch for prairie trout,” warned wagonmaster Terry “Murph” Murphy. We knew he meant rattlesnakes. “Everything on the prairie either scratches you, pokes you or bites you,” Murph said. He wasn't kidding.
We'd been bumping along for over an hour on a covered wagon owned by the modern day Oregon Trail Wagon Train. We were taking the three-hour ride up to Chimney Rock, the most mentioned of any Western monument in diaries of overland emigrants. Along the way, Murph told tales of the trails that crossed through the valley over the past century and a half.
Bearded and graying, Murph talked and looked as if he had just stepped off the trail himself. Having worked with the Wagon Train for 25 years, his years on that modern-day trail may have created his mid-1800s persona.
At Chimney Rock, Murph told us we could walk up a little footpath to the conical base of the spire. The summer sun was beating down, and I couldn't help but imagine what overland travelers felt when they stood as we did at the foot of this strange spire.
Chimney Rock has been the subject of many comparisons over the years. When missionary Father Pierre DeSmet passed by in 1841, he likened it to an inverted funnel. Another man dubbed it “Nose Mountain.” Others recognized the Bunker Hill Monument or Washington Monument. Among settlers, the consensus was that the rock looked like a chimney. Native Americans, having no chimneys, chose an earthier description — they likened the protrusion to the anatomy of a male elk. But everyone, it seems, echoed Capt. Benjamin Bonneville's opinion that it was “a singular phenomenon, which is among the curiosities of the country.”
From the names, descriptions and metaphors suggested by hundreds of thousands of people who traveled in its shadow — trading fur, heading for Oregon, seeking gold in California or religious freedom in Utah, carrying Pony Express mail, working the telegraph, fighting Indians or carrying freight — Chimney Rock is the name that stuck.
We climbed back into the wagon. Murph asked, “What do you think wagonmasters yelled out to get the horses to move in those days?”
“Wagons ho!” he cried, answering his own question. In reply, our oats-driven horsepower, Chip and Sally, started back to the camp beside the river. Along the way, my wife and I each got a turn at holding the reigns and “driving” the horses. Murph pointed out Biscuit Rock, a little round shape just behind Chimney Rock. He pointed to Pregnant Lady Rock off in one direction and Whiskey Rock, or Castle Rock, in another.
In some places, the original trail ruts ran parallel to the primitive road we were following. The Wagon Train crew periodically re-grades some of their own tracks, but are careful to disturb but little of the remnants of the original overland trails.
There's something about seeing the ruts with your own eyes, using all your senses to experience the presence of place around Chimney Rock, that drives home the overland experience more than any amount of research might. That, Murph told us, is the whole idea behind the Wagon Train.
In the complete story in the Jan/Feb 2004 issue, Curt Arens explores other aspects of Chimney Rock and the nearby community of Bayard.