In 1956, Wyoming Told Washington Not to Build I-80 Here. It Opened in 1970 and Closed in Four Days

There is a seventy-seven mile stretch of Interstate 80 in southern Wyoming that has gates across it. They stand at Laramie on one end and at Walcott Junction on the other, and when the state swings them shut, the main road from New York to San Francisco stops being a road. They were the first closure gates on any major highway in the United States, put in three winters after this stretch opened. It opened on a Saturday in October of 1970, with a ribbon and four hundred people. It closed on the Wednesday. Twenty miles to the north there is a two-lane highway that runs where the railroad went in 1868, and where Wyoming asked for the interstate to go. It is still there. And whenever the interstate closes, the state closes that road too. On purpose. This is not a story about weather. It is a story about a decision made in Washington in 1956, against the advice of everyone who would have to live with it. IF YOU ARE GOING UP THERE Ad. Pit Stop, the iPhone app that tells you what is at the next exits and warns you before a long stretch without gas: https://www.pit-stop-app.com/go/oldalignment As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. DeLorme Wyoming Atlas & Gazetteer: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1946494089?tag=oldalignment-20 WHERE IT IS The stretch is Interstate 80 between Walcott Junction (exit 235) and Laramie, 77 miles. The old road is US 30/287 through Rock River, Medicine Bow and Hanna. WYO 13 links the two between the Arlington exit (272) and US 30 north of Rock River. The closure gates are at the Laramie end and at Walcott Junction. In winter, check the state road report at wyoroad.info before you set out. When the gates are down, they are not a suggestion. PRONUNCIATIONS Laramie: LAIR-uh-mee. Walcott: WALL-cut. A NOTE ON THE IMAGES The research and the script are mine, from primary records and archives, and the sources are listed below. Where no photograph of a place survives, and for this channel that is often, the images are period material from elsewhere rather than the place itself. SOURCES John Waggener, Snow Chi Minh Trail: The History of Interstate 80 Between Laramie and Walcott Junction Cowboy State Daily, "Longest and Worst Stretch of Interstate in U.S. Turns 50", October 2020 Cowboy State Daily, on the 1956 routing fight and the first gates of 1973, 2021 Cowboy State Daily, Bill Sniffin on the closures and US 30, February 2022 Cowboy State Daily, on Wyoming's snow fences, 2024 Laramie Boomerang, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Laramie to Walcott Junction section, October 2020 Transportation Research Record 860, 1982, on the Interstate 80 snow fence system Ronald Tabler, Snow Fence Guide, Strategic Highway Research Program, 1991 Wyoming Department of Transportation, on snow fences and road closures University of Wyoming American Heritage Center, on the history of the route IF YOU WERE THERE If you have driven the Snow Chi Minh Trail in winter, sat at the gate at Laramie waiting for the sign to change, or you have family who plowed it or built it, I want to hear it. And if anybody has a photograph of the ribbon cutting at the Arlington exit on the 3rd of October 1970, I would very much like to know it still exists. Comment or write to [email protected]. Old Alignment. Abandoned American roads, railroads and infrastructure. New video every other day. #interstate80 #wyominghistory #snowchiminhtrail