Naming a place "The Devil's Gate" brings up images of an ominous and dangerous area. Somehow my husband and I ended up at the a real Devil's Gate in Wyoming. Instead of being creepy it was very beautiful. It was so beautiful we pulled the car over and so I could take a picture.
The Devil's Gate
The picture above is one I took on a road trip my husband and I took a six years ago. We were driving through Wyoming and saw one of those "scenic overview" signs and turned down it. It took us to the Devil's Gate landmark. In the picture you can see two huge hills with a pass in between them which is the "gate."
The Fence Around The Area Surrounding The Devils Gate
I didn't know much about this landmark until a bit ago when I found this picture and looked it up. The name comes from emigrants moving westward in the 1800s by wagon trains. The Arapahoe and Shoshone Indians had legends about this area and said the it was created when an evil creature lived there and was an enemy to their people. The tribes decided to kill the monster because it prevented them from hunting. During the fight, the beast torn a hole in the land with one of its tusks making the Devil's Gate landmark look the way it does today. When settlers started moving westward they gave it the name Devil's Gate because it was seen as a place haunted by evil forces. Murders and other bad events often happened there and many settlers were buried around the hill who died on the journey westward.
There weren't any signs when my husband and I visited this place. Only nature and this beautiful view of the world. Who knew it had such a fascinating history? We never even planned to visit this place. It was just a random decision. Random decisions on road trips often take you down the most interesting paths.
Photo credit: this is my own photo