martin's cove

Traders known only as Merchant and Williams built a post near Devil’s Gate in 1861, on ground already steeped in trading-post history, and, within a year, tangled up in Civil War troop movements, a Mormon militia company, and the site’s violent Native and emigrant past.

Along the Sweetwater River near Independence Rock, Archambault’s Post traded with emigrants and Native peoples through the 1850s, its history tangled with the neighboring Seminoe’s Post. Abandoned by 1856, it briefly sheltered Mormon handcart emigrants stranded that fall in a killing snowstorm.

Devil’s Gate on the Sweetwater River became an important landmark for emigrants on the Oregon/California/Mormon trails. Trader Charles Lajeunesse ran a post there in the 1850s, not long before a Mormon handcart company sought shelter from a blizzard at nearby Matins Cove. Later, the famous Sun Ranch was headquartered there for 125 years.