Pine Bluffs, Wyoming: Where the Cattle Trail Met the Iron Road

Pine Bluffs sits at the far eastern edge of Wyoming, just inside the state line. The Union Pacific Railroad arrived in eighteen sixty-eight and Union Pacific officials named the stop for the pine-covered bluffs nearby. The settlement began as a tent, a slab shack, and a canvas-covered grocery-saloon.

Its real destiny arrived with Texas cattle. Cattle trails running north from Texas crossed the Union Pacific tracks right here. In the following years, thousands of head of cattle passed through, and Pine Bluffs became a busy cattle-shipping point on the Union Pacific line.

The drives ended with the open range, but the town endured as a small agricultural community of about one thousand people.