The History of Public Support for the Red Desert
The vast, untamed lands of the Red Desert have hosted humans since time immemorial, and inspired Wyoming people to protect its special values since early statehood.
In 1889, a Lander hunter, supported by the League of Associated Sportsmen, proposed that the northern Red Desert be designated by Congress as a national winter game reserve.
In 1935, Wyoming Governor Leslie Miller proposed that Congress designate part of the Red Desert as the Western Trails National Park.
In 1944, the WY Game and Fish Department began a 23-year old translocation effort to reestablish the Steamboat Mountain desert elk herd (which was extirpated in the early 1900s.)
In 1961, the US National Park Service requested that Congress designate most of the western part of the Great Divide Basin/Red Desert as a national monument.
Bob Wick/BLM-WY/Flickr
In 1968, Wyoming residents went to Congress to recommend the Red Desert be declared a North American Antelope Range.
Bob Wick/BLM-WY/Flickr
In 1978, Congress designated the Oregon and Mormon Pioneer Trails as National Historic Trails. In 1992, Congress did the same for the California and Pony Express Trails. (All run through the Red Desert.)
Joe Riis/WY Migration Initiative/Flickr
In 2016, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department designated the Red Desert to Hoback mule deer migration corridor, the longest ungulate migration in the Lower 48.
“Look at a map of this State, in the northern part of Sweetwater County you will find a tract of land marked "the red desert...by setting off a portion of country...enough of this territory would be taken to furnish a winter range for the elk and other large game for all time...it will be one of the greatest triumphs for game protection yet achieved.”
- Dr. Frank Dunham, Recreation, 1898