The Lombard Ferry was one of the most used crossings on the Green River, lasting from about 1843 into the early 1900s. First established by mountain men, it was operated by Mormons in the 1850s during the peak years of westward emigration. Emigrant parties thought to have crossed here included the 1841 Bartleson-Bidwell Party, the first wagon train of emigrants to California; the 1843 Applegate Party, the first large group of emigrants headed to Oregon; the 1846 Donner Party, later stranded by snow in the Sierras; Brigham Young and the first Mormon emigrants who settled Utah in 1847; and the first Mormon Handcart Companies in 1856, whose members pulled their own belongings across the plains. On June 28, 1852, Mariett Foster Cummings, a young woman traveling to California, wrote that her party reached the Green River ferry by eight o'clock after starting before sunrise, and that the deep, swift stream was 200 feet wide, with a rope ferry charging $3 per wagon and 25 cents per head of horses. William Lombard, for whom the site is named, operated the ferry from about 1880 into the early 20th century, until bridges across the Green River ended the need for ferries.