South Big Horn/Red Wall Scenic Backway
Bessemer Bend, WY

The distinctive Red Buttes stand above Bessemer Bend, the last fording site of the North Platte River on the Mormon/Oregon Trail. This river, which the emigrants had followed for hundreds of miles, now turned to the south and became impassable. Toll ferries and bridges downstream of the Bend were established after 1847, but emigrants, including the handcart companies of 1856, who did not want to pay the tolls, used Bessemer Bend as a low-water crossing.