Independence Rock, a loaf-shaped formation along the Sweetwater River that would have had little significance, had it not stood at roughly the midpoint of westbound emigrants' arduous trek from the vicinity of the Mississippi River to their destinations far to the west

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They called it Independence Rock with the appreciation that it would be wise to reach this location in what is now Natrona County, Wyoming, by U.S. Independence Day, July 4, in order to have a good chance of making it through the forbidding Rocky Mountains before heavy snowfall sealed passes and threatened their survival. The area around the rock was also a fortuitous resting spot, blessed with fresh water and plenty of grass for livestock
Credit line: Gates Frontiers Fund Wyoming Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Gift; Gates Frontiers Fund; 2015; (DLC/PP-2015:069).
Forms part of: Gates Frontiers Fund Wyoming Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive.