On April 26th at 4 PM, come hear author and UW Archivist John Waggener talk about his new book, The Snow Chi Minh Trail: The History of Interstate 80 between Laramie and Walcott Junction. The talk is in the McMurry Reading Room in Coe Library. Books will be available for sale. Please RSVP to 307-766-3279.
During the Vietnam War, the Ho Chi Minh Trail was cut through the perilous mountain terrain by North Vietnamese to run supplies, ammunition and soldiers to reach South Vietnam. Similarly, a stretch of highway along the Interstate 80 corridor was constructed in rugged mountainous areas, which has not been popular over the years, especially during brutal Wyoming winters.
Waggener’s book title comes from long-haul truckers who dubbed that 77-mile stretch the “Snow Chi Minh Trail,” a negative reference to the similarly mountainous roadway used by North Vietnamese soldiers.
“Those truckers saw a lot of action and relived some of it as they drove across I-80,” Waggener says. “Not many stretches of highway across America have generated so much interest to fill the pages of a book, but Interstate 80 between Laramie and Rawlins is one of those exceptions.”
In the early years along the Snow Chi Minh Trail, bulldozers were needed to clear drifts like this one. Source: Ronald Tabler Papers, UW American Heritage Center.
That stretch of road in south-central Wyoming is steeped in tragedy, controversy, myth and even conspiracy, Waggener explains in his book.
The newly constructed stretch of I-80 was dedicated Oct. 3, 1970, but residents had warned highway officials of the adverse weather conditions around the Elk Mountain area and advised them not to build a road in that location. Wyomingites who knew their history reminded highway officials that the Union Pacific Railroad looked at that same area 100 years earlier when planning and constructing the nation’s first transcontinental railroad and decided against the shorter, more direct route.
But, just four days after the highway was dedicated, a winter storm wreaked havoc on motorists traveling on the new highway, which Wyomingites referred to as a “monument to human error,” Waggener says.
He says his family made many trips down I-80 and is familiar with the terrain.
“Our road trips were full of sightseeing, explanations and interpretations of the natural, cultural and historical wonders found along the way,” Waggener says.
One of his more vivid memories comes from an introduction to the “Snow Chi Minh Trail” in 1972 when his parents took him to the Oct. 7 Wyoming Cowboys football game. He still has the ticket stub.
“The road conditions that day were favorable, but I will always remember the near whiteout conditions my dad got us safely through on several other occasions,” he adds.
Waggener started working on the book project in 2004 and says, “It is pretty emotional to finally see it published.”
Waggener is a fifth-generation Wyomingite, born and raised in the Interstate 80 town of Green River. He attended UW, where he earned his undergraduate degree in education and geography, and his graduate degree in geography. He has been a faculty archivist at the American Heritage Center since 2001, where he enjoys preserving historical Wyoming documents and making them available to researchers.
John Waggener “testing” the rails of a snow fence along I-80, 2008
