At Bessemer Bend, the surrounding landscape holds a long record of human activity, from nomadic hunters preparing bison hide robes at a nearby camp ten thousand years ago to trappers building the first crude log cabin known in the region in November 1812. In late June during the 1840s and 1850s, wagons and livestock forded the North Platte River here on the way west, with many emigrants camping at Willow Springs fifteen miles west and others on this side of the river taking a more northerly track through Emigrant Gap. In October 1856, Mormon pioneers at a frozen campsite struggled to bury their dead after deaths from exposure and malnutrition. The Red Butte Pony Express Station served the route in 1860 and 1861, and in July 1865 an Army supply train returning to Platte Bridge Station, present-day Ft. Caspar, was overrun by Plains Indian warriors. Ranch buildings appeared along a nearby ridge in 1877, a train whistle in June 1888 signaled the permanent establishment of the town of Casper, and hopeful pioneers settled the Bessemer townsite a short distance west of here that same year.