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Thousands of emigrants following the Oregon-California Trail crossed the North Platte River over a bridge built here by John Richard (Reshaw). The $5 toll during high water saved swimming or ferrying across, and saved countless lives in the process.
A sizeable community developed on the south side of Richard's Bridge, including a store, blacksmith shop, and occasional military posts.
Fort Clay, also known as Camp Davis, was established here in 1855 to protect this bridge. Camp Payne was also located here in 1858-59.
Comments
Trail-veteran John Baptiste Richard (consistently pronounced and usually written as "Reshaw") built the first bridge across the North Platte near Deer Creek (Glenrock) in the winter of 1850-1851. On 23 February 1851 "J. Richards" announced in a St. Joseph newspaper ad that had his bridge been in place the previous year, "a large number of lives would have been saved," and that he intended "to bridge all the more difficult streams as far as Fort Bridger." The poorly-built but highly-profitable span washed away in the spring floods of 1851. Richard moved upstream to the site of the Lower Ferry, today's Evansville, and built a new bridge using substantial four-sided log piers filled with rocks that lasted until 1866, when soldiers from Fort Caspar dismantled it for firewood.
Location
Evansville, Natrona County, Wyoming. NE1/4SW1/4, Sec. 36, T34N, R79W.
Ownership
Town of Evansville, Wyoming
Access
Open to the public
Directions
In Evansville, on the eastern edge of Casper, go north on Oregon Trail National Cemetery Road, turn left at the river's edge into Evansville Town Park.
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