Sample Letter Supporting South Pass

Mr. Cagney,

Wyoming is blessed with the best remaining traces of the old Oregon Trail anywhere in our country. In particular, Wyoming is home to Greater South Pass, without which our country's iconic westward migration would have been impossible. Wyoming as a thoroughfare to the Pacific is a significant influence on the state's history. South Pass is of obvious significance to the establishment of the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails. More than 300,000 people followed the Oregon Trail through South Pass, between 1840 and 1860 on their way to Utah, Oregon, and California.

The region of South Pass was also hunting grounds and home to Native Americans for approximately 10,000 years before white explorers and fur trappers came to the area. Known only to Native Peoples until 1812, this area is historically signifiant as well to Shoshone, Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapahoe, Pawnee, Crow, Blackfeet, and Ute tribes.

Fortunately, as a result of Wyoming's previous conservation efforts, the historic landscape of South Pass remains virtually unchanged from how it appeared in the mid-1800s. And it should remain so.

At present, the Lander BLM is working on a Resource Management Plan which could change all that. I am writing to urge you to use your influence to ensure that South Pass remain a pristine historic jewel of this state. I am not asking for anything new, simply that this unique landscape continue to be managed as it has been in the past.

This would include forbidding any energy development that compromises the historic trails and their related viewsheds. Wind energy development, the only energy resource in the area, should not be permitted to degrade historic trails, or view corridors. I would request a five-mile "no surface occupancy" buffer to protect from these types of developments. Beyond that, distance from the trails can be determined on a case-by-case basis depending on topography. Such a system will protect the historic trails and core sage grouse areas.

There will never be another South Pass. Once it is compromised, it can never be reclaimed or mitigated. People come from all over the world to experience this amazing resource. In so doing, they also feed Wyoming's economy. As a former employee of Community Services Collaborative, who prepared the South Pass City Historic Buildings Evaluation for the Wyoming Recreation Commission in 1990, I urge you use your influence to protect South Pass for future generations.

Sincerely,
Cheyanne Valenzuela
Apache-Comanche-Mestiza
Historic Preservation Specialist for Research and Grantsmanship
Dakota Resource Group