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Dangerous Work: Building the Yellowstone Highway 

Blasting a road through Wyoming’s Wind River Canyon in the 1920s was like chiseling a trail into the jaws of a granite beast—complete with dynamite, sheer cliffs, and the constant threat of falling into a roaring river. It took guts, grit, and more than a few prayers to carve tunnels and hang a highway from canyon walls that soared thousands of feet above the brave souls below!

It’s a story of blasting rock, battling floods, and threading a road through a canyon so tight and twisted, the river barely had room to run, let alone a Ford Model T! This is the story of building the Wind River Canyon Highway.

Before there was a road, there was only a dream. A dream of connecting the Big Horn Basin — a rich empire of agriculture, coal, and oil — with the rest of Wyoming. But standing in the way was the Owl Creek Range, a granite wall that had isolated northwestern Wyoming like an island in the sky.

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