Gen. Luke Reiner[1] head of the Wyoming Department of Transportation, has stated that WYDOT is proposing to reroute Interstate 80 along the path of Wyoming Highway 30.
Eh?
Okay, this is the stretch between Laramie and Rawlins, which is notoriously bad during bad weather. For those not familiar with I80 in that area, or Highway 30 between Laramie and Rawlins, observe below:
WYDOT Public use map.
For those who are historically minded, you may be thinking that Highway 30, in that area, looks a bit familiar.
That's because that is where the "interstate", or protointerstate if you will, was prior to Interstate 80 being built.
Witness:
Gen. Reiner notes, in his statements to the Cowboy State Daily, that
“If you look at a map, you’ll see that the old highway, Highway 30, goes further to the north, and then sort of comes down from the north into I-80. Rumor has it that when they went to build I-80, that the initial route followed the route of Highway 30. And somebody made the decision, ‘No, we’re going to move closer to these very beautiful mountains,’ to which the locals said, ‘Bad idea,’ based on weather. And it has proved to be true.”
I don't know if it's a rumor, and I don't know if they had beauty in mind. I've heard the same thing about locals warning those building the highway not to get too close to the mountains, only to be disregarded.
Highway 30 followed the route of the Union Pacific, and except in this stretch still largely does. The Interstate, however, followed a cutoff route of the Overland Trail. That's significant that the portion of the Overland Trail that it followed turned out to be an unpopular one, and the Army, which garrisoned a post at the base of Elk Mountain, eventually abandoned it.
We've written about that location here:
Where Ft. Halleck was, from a great distance.
This set of photographs attempts to record something from a very great distance, and with the improper lenses. I really should have known better, quite frankly, and forgot to bring the lense that would have been ideal. None the less, looking straight up the center of this photograph, you'll see where Ft. Halleck once was.
The post was located at the base of Elk Mountain on the Overland Trail, that "shortcut" alternative to the Oregon Trail that shaved miles, at the expense of convenience and risk. Ft. Halleck was built in 1862 to reduce the risk. Whomever located the post must have done so in the summer, as placing a post on this location would seem, almost by definition, to express a degree of ignorance as to what the winters here are like.
The area to the northeast of where Ft. Halleck once was.
The fort was only occupied until 1866, although it was a major post during that time. Ft. Sanders, outside the present city of Laramie, made the unnecessary and to add to that, Sanders was in a more livable
Of course, by that time the Union Pacific was also progressing through the area, and that would soon render the Overland Trail obsolete. While not on an identical path the Overland Trail and the Union Pacific approximated each others routes and, very shortly, troops would be able to travel by rail.As that occured, it would also be the case that guarding the railroad would become a more important function for the Army, and forts soon came to be placed on it.Elk Mountain
And, therefore, Ft. Halleck was abandoned.
Whatever the reason for locating Interstate 80 there, and I suspect it had more to do with bypassing a bunch of country, making the road shorter, and the like, it was a poor choice indeed. The weather in that area is horrific during the winter. Perhaps the irony of that is that this stretch of the National Defense Highway system would have had to end up being avoided, quite frequently, if we'd really needed it if the Soviets had attacked us in the winter.
Gen. Reiner, who really doesn't expect this to occur, has noted in favor of it:
Our suggestion to the federal government is to say, ‘If you want to do something for the nation’s commerce along I-80, reroute it. Follow Highway 30 — it’s about 100 miles of new interstate, the estimated cost would be about $6 billion. So, it’s not cheap, but our estimate is that it would dramatically reduce the number of days the interstate’s closed, because that’s the section that that kills us.
It doesn't just "kill" us in a budgetary fashion. It kills a lot of people too. Anyone who has litigated in Wyoming has dealt with I80 highway fatalities in this section. That makes the $6,000,000,000 investment worthwhile in my mind.
And of course taking the more southerly route doesn't just kill people, as crass as that is to say, it helped kill the towns of Rock River and Medicine Bow, two of the five towns on that stretch of Highway 30 that were once pretty bustling Lincoln Highway towns.[1] Highway 30 runs rough through them.
And of note, FWIW, Highway 30 between Bosler and Rock River
Now, I know that a new Interstate 80 wouldn't go right through Rock River and Medicine Bow, but past them, like Highway 30 does to Hanna, but some people would in fact pull off. It's inevitable.
It's a good idea.
Not as good of an idea as electrifying the railroad and restoring train travel, but still a good idea.
It won't happen, however. Not even though there's still relatively little between Laramie and Rawlins, and it won't cause any real towns to dry up and blow away. Not even though it would save lives and ultimately thousands of lost travel dollars. And not even though the current administration is spending infrastructure money like crazy.
Footnotes:
1. Before he was head of WYDOT, Reiner was the commanding officer of the Wyoming Army National Guard.
When I was a National Guardsmen he was a lieutenant, and his first assignment was to my Liaison section. I knew him at that time. He's an accountant by training, and he was in fact an accountant at the time. His parents were Lutheran missionaries in Namibia, where he had partially grown up.
2. The towns are Bosler, Rock River, Medicine Bow, and Hanna.
