Motorists traveling between the Wyoming border and Salt Lake City along a route covering portions of Interstate 80, Interstate 84, Utah Highway 65 and Emigration Canyon Road are being made aware they are on historic ground, thanks to a set of new historic trail markers.
The route is shared by three historic trails, and each of the 27 signs along the route features the logos of the Mormon Pioneer Trail, the California Trail and the Pony Express Trail.It is the first time highway signs have been placed to identify more than one trail, with the recognition that some historic trails share roughly the same alignment.
The signs in Utah are a joint effort between the National Park Service and the Utah Department of Transportation, which shared the $10,000 cost of placing 49 signs marking historic routes in the northern part of the state. Besides the 27 markers along the Mormon Trail segment, 12 signs along another route feature just the California and the Pony Express trail logos, and 10 signs identify just the California Trail.
Over the next decade the Park Service plans to place similar multi-trail historic signs in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, California, Oregon and Washington, said Jere Krakow, superintendent of the Long Distance Trail Office.
