Travelers carved their names into the rock of Names Hill

Names Hill is a bluff overlooking the Green River where travelers back in the 19th century left their signatures carved straight into the stone. Travelers on the Oregon and California trails would rest at the Green River following a 40-mile (64 km) waterless trek across the prairie, providing an opportunity to add their names to the hill.

European American names started popping up as early as 1822. These early visitors were mountain men on a mission to find beaver streams in the Rocky Mountains. Things really picked up by 1844 when Caleb Greenwood and Isaac Hitchcock led the first wagon train over what would later be called the Sublette-Greenwood Cutoff, crossing the Green River at Names Hill. This made it one of three notable recording areas along the emigrant trails in Wyoming.

One of the most well known carvings is linked to the legendary mountain man Jim Bridger. Some people still debate if it is really his because Bridger was thought to have been illiterate. It is also worth noting that Native American pictographs were already there before these western names showed up.

Today the bluff is a State Historic Site and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is a way to see the scale of westward expansion when you look at it signature by signature.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons