From here to Split Rock, a day's journey west, the Oregon Trail followed two routes, one close to the Sweetwater River and the other a little farther from it but more direct. On August 1, 1852, Capt. Howard Stansbury wrote of frost during the night, a clear, calm, beautiful morning, deep heavy sand, the road continuing up the right bank of the Sweetwater, and a valley nearly two miles wide with rolling hills between two mountain ranges forming its limits. Stansbury was a federal topographical engineer mapping both emigrant routes and a possible railroad right-of-way. In 1852, Granville Stuart wrote that the Sweetwater River's beautiful clear cold water had a sweetish taste caused by alkali held in solution, though not enough to cause any apparent injurious effects. The U.S. Post Office Department also contracted monthly mail delivery passing here between Independence, Missouri and Salt Lake City, Utah, usually by light-draft wagons in summer and pack mules in winter, and this remained the only mail delivery through here until late 1858; Devil's Gate mail station stood one half mile south of the Gate.