Richard's (Reshaw's) Bridge and Trading Post

Location: The site of Richard's (Reshaw's) Bridge is located in the town of Evansville, just east of Casper. It can be reached by turning north from Exit 185 on Interstate 25 onto Curtis Street. Travel north for approximately 1.2 miles to the entrance (on the left) to the Reshaw Bridge Park.

Wagon

History: In 1851 John Baptiste Richard (commonly pronounced "Reshaw") build a log toll bridge over the North Platte River about one mile west of Deer Creek near today's Glenrock. After this bridge was washed out in the spring of 1852, he and eight other partners built a sturdy, twelve-arch wooden toll bridge at a site near present-day Evansville. The structure was 835 feet long and 18 feet wide and was constructed of hewn timbers bolted together. It rested on 23 piers of cribs of hewn timbers filled with stone. By charging emigrants as much as five dollars a wagon during high water, the partners made $40,000 by the end of June 1853. This bridge ended the necessity of fording or ferrying what could be a very dangerous river. Richard bought out his other partners in a few years and operated the toll bridge sporadically from 1852 to 1865, serving emigrant trains and other travelers. This bridge put the Mormon Ferry out of business in 1853. When the Guinard Bridge was built at the current site of Fort Caspar in 1859, it in turn put the Reshaw Bridge out of business.

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Stop 1 Oregon Trail Burial - Quintina Snoderly · Stop 2 Edness Kimball Wilkins State Park · Stop 3 Richard's (Reshaw's) Bridge and Trading Post · Stop 4 Mormon Ferry, Probable Second Site · Stop 5 Mormon Ferry, Probable First Site · Stop 6 Fort Caspar · Stop 7 Battle of Red Buttes · Stop 8 Bessemer Bend/Red Buttes Crossing · Stop 9 Emigrant Gap · Stop 10 Avenue of Rocks/Devil's Backbone/Clayton's Slough · Stop 11 Willow Springs · Stop 12 Prospect Hill/Ryan Hill · Stop 13 Horse Creek (Greasewood) · Stop 14 Saleratus (Playa) Lake/Sweetwater Pony Express Station · Stop 15 Independence Rock · Stop 16 Devil's Gate · Stop 17 Martin's Cove · Stop 18 Split Rock

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