01Summary
A 370-foot-deep gorge where the Sweetwater River cuts through a granite ridge. It was too narrow for wagons, so the trail went around it.
02History
At Devil's Gate the Sweetwater River has cut a slot through a granite ridge about 370 feet deep and 1,500 feet long. It is only about 30 feet wide at the bottom. Geologists think the river first flowed across softer sediments that once buried the ridge, then kept cutting down when it reached the granite.
The gorge was too narrow for wagons, so the road went around it, but many emigrants hiked up to see the river roaring below. 'The chasm is one of the wonders of the world,' Charles Boyle wrote in 1849. In the early 1850s French-speaking traders and their Shoshone wives and families ran a trading post nearby.
In the fall of 1856 the Martin handcart company, Latter-day Saint emigrants who pulled their belongings in carts, was caught by blizzards. In early November they took shelter in a cove near here, now called Martin's Cove. Between 135 and 150 of its members, about one in four, died on the journey.
03Today
Tom Sun, a French Canadian, set up a hunting camp at Devil's Gate by 1872 and later built a cattle ranch here, which his family ran for more than 100 years. In the 1990s they sold the historic core of the ranch to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose visitor center tells the story of the 1856 handcart companies and includes a reconstruction of the old trading post.
05Stops nearby
The Oregon Trail ran about 2,170 miles from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City. The stops just before and after this one are below. You can also find Devil's Gate on the interactive map.