There is a peculiar tree and located right in the middle of Interstate 80, between Cheyenne and Laramie, in southeast Wyoming. This amazing little pre-historic Wonder just might be the most-viewed of all Wonders of Wyoming. Tree Rock is located on Interstate 80, and I mean in the median, smack-dab in the middle of the Interstate. It lies on a stretch of I-80 between Cheyenne and Laramie, in southeast Wyoming. Imagine the number of travelers that pass by Tree Rock each day. There’s a very unusual median turnout that allows for motorists to stop and take pictures or just marvel at the tree that grows out of a boulder of pre-historic rock.
Tree in the Rock has fascinated passers-by since the 1860’s when the first Union Pacific train rolled by. It is said that the tracks were once diverted to pass by Tree Rock. In 1901, the railroad line moved south, but a wagon road remained. Then in 1913, the old Lincoln Highway came by Tree Rock, and by the 1920s, the Lincoln Highway gave way to U.S. Highway 30. Finally, in the 1960s, Interstate 80 was built, and Tree Rock was guaranteed a large audience for years to come.
Tree Rock is a small, twisted, limber pine tree. And I’m sure there are many others around the Cowboy State that look very much like it. But this one grows out of a crack in a pre-Cambrian Era pink Sherman granite boulder. No one knows exactly how old the little defiant pine tree is, but we do know that the species can live as long as 2,000 years. As for the rock, it is known that the boulder was formed anywhere from 1-4 billion years ago.
This trivial tree has spellbound the travelers since the first train rolled past on the Union Pacific Railroad. It is believed that the builders of the original railroad diverted the tracks somewhat to pass by the tree as they laid rails across the Sherman Mountains in 1867-69. The train used to stop here while the locomotive firemen “gave the tree a drink” from their water buckets.
Rock Tree of Wyoming Resources
Tree in the Rock, Buford, Wyoming
www.roadsideamerica.com/story/11660
Tree in the Rock. Buford, Wyoming. There aren’t a lot of trees in southeastern Wyoming, and there were probably even less when the Union Pacific laid its tracks there in 1867. So when the railroad men saw a plucky little Limber Pine that seemed to be growing out of a granite boulder, they actually jogged the railroad sideways to preserve it.
Tree in the Rock, in Wyoming | Amusing Planet
www.amusingplanet.com/2014/03/tree-in-rock-in-wyoming.html
Tree in the Rock, in Wyoming by Kaushik Patowary. Monday, March 31, 2014. Read. Located right in the middle of Interstate 80, between Cheyenne and Laramie, in southeast Wyoming is a peculiar tree.
Buford, WY – Tree in the Rock
www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/11660
Tree in the Rock Famous tree that seems to sprout from solid rock, preserved between the east and west lanes of I-80. The lone pine tree has been fascinating travelers since the first railroad passed through in 1867.