THE DEVIL'S GATE.
The Devil's Gate and Independence Rock, a few miles distant, are probably the two best known landmarks on the Trail—the one for its grotesque and striking scenic effect. Here, as at Split Rock, the mountain seems as if it had been split apart, leaving an opening a few rods wide, through which the Sweetwater River pours a veritable torrent. The river first approaches to within a few hundred feet of the gap, and then suddenly curves away from it, and after winding though the valley for a half a mile or so, a quarter of a mile distant, it takes a straight shot and makes the plunge through the canyon. Those who have had the impression they drove their teams through this gap are mistaken, for it's a feat no mortal man has done or can do, any more than they could drive up the falls of the Niagara.
Devil's Gate, Sweetwater.
This year, on my 1906 trip, I did clamber through on the left bank, over boulders head high, under shelving rocks where the sparrows' nests were in full possession, and ate some ripe gooseberries from the bushes growing on the border of the river, and plucked some beautiful wild roses—this on the second day of July, A. D. 1906. I wonder why those wild roses grow there where nobody will see them? Why these sparrows' nests? Why did this river go through this gorge instead of breaking the barrier a little to the south where the easy road runs? These questions run through my mind, and why I know not. The gap through the mountains looked familiar as I spied it from the distance, but the roadbed to the right I had forgotten. I longed to see this place, for here, somewhere under the sands, lies all that was mortal of a brother, Clark Meeker, drowned in the Sweetwater in 1854 while attempting to cross the Plains; would I be able to see and identify the grave? No.
I quote from my journal:
"Camp No. 85, July 2.—Odometer 1,059. This camp is at Tom Sun's place, the Sun postoffice, Wyoming, and is in Sec. 35, T. 29 N. R. 97, 6 P. M., and it is one-half mile to the upper end of the Devil's Gate, through which the Sweetwater runs. The passage is not more than 100 feet wide and is 1,300 feet through with walls 483 feet at highest point. The altitude is 5860.27, according to the United States geological survey marks. It is one of nature's marvels, this rift in the mountain to let the waters of the Sweetwater through. Mr. Tom Sun, or Thompson, has lived here thirty odd years and says there are numerous graves of the dead pioneers, but all have been leveled by the tramp of stock, 225,000 head of cattle alone having passed over the Trail in 1882 and in some single years over a half million sheep. But the Trail is deserted now, and scarcely five wagons pass in a week, with part of the roadbed grown up in grass. That mighty movement—tide shall we call it—of suffering humanity first going west, accompanied and afterwards followed by hundreds of thousands of stock, with the mightier ebb of millions upon millions of returning cattle and sheep going east, has all ceased, and now the road is a solitude save a few straggling wagons, or here and there a local flock driven to pasture. No wonder that we looked in vain for the graves of the dead with this great throng passing and repassing."
A pleasant little anecdote is told by his neighbors of the odd name of "Tom Sun," borne by that sturdy yeoman (a Swede, I think), and of whose fame for fair dealing and liberality I could hear upon all sides. The story runs that when he first went to the bank, then and now sixty miles away, to deposit, the cashier asked his name and received the reply Thompson, emphasizing the last syllable pronounced with so much emphasis, that it was written Tom Sun, and from necessity a check had to be so signed, thus making that form of spelling generally known, and finally it was adopted as the name of the postoffice.