A marker west of highway 189 between Daniel and Big Piney, near
the Big Piney Cut-off reads:
"Thousands of people, cattle and horses passed this way to
the Northwest when the Sublette Cut-off of the Oregon Trail was
opened in 1857. None settled in this county. At the close of the
Indian Wars in 1877, cattle herds from Oregon came this way to meet
the railroad and to stock Wyoming ranges. The first Sublette County
herds were started with other western cattle. In 1878-79, Ed
Swan's, Otto Leifer's (Circle), D. B. Budd's, Hugh McKay's (67) and
A. W. Smith's (Muleshoe) outfits settled on nearby Piney Creek.
Their cattle were not longhorns. The county's first barbed wire was
unrolled in 1881 on the Circle outfit."
The marker was erected in June 1960 at the expense of the
Sublette County Historical Society. The text was written by Jim
Harrower.
