Echo Canyon has long served as a transportation corridor. In the mid 1800s, the California, Mormon Pioneer, and Pony Express Trails all passed through this canyon, and today Interstate 80 follows the same route. For hundreds of years, sounds of travel have lingered between its red walls, including the scraping of native Ute and Shoshone travois on river gravel, the crunch of fur trappers' footsteps in the snow, the whinnying, braying, and bellowing of horses, mules, and oxen, the crack of a teamster's whip, the creaking of wagons and stagecoaches, and the chugging, hissing, and clickity-clack of a steam locomotive on rails. Travel through the canyon grew faster over time: in 1847, walking beside an ox-drawn wagon from the Wyoming border took two days; by stage in 1859, the trip took over three hours; and by train in 1870, the distance was covered in just under two hours.