The South Platte River Trail byway loops through Sedgwick County's frontier past

Near the northeast corner of Colorado, a short loop drive near Julesburg carries a lot of frontier history for its length. It is the South Platte River Trail, one of Colorado’s state-designated scenic and historic byways.

The route follows the corridor that thousands of travelers once used heading west along the South Platte River. Along the way are markers and sites tied to that era: Fort Sedgwick, an Army post set up in the 1860s to guard the trail and the telegraph line, and the site of a Pony Express station that CDOT describes as Colorado’s only home station of its kind. The county and the town of Julesburg itself grew out of this crossroads of trail, stage, telegraph, and railroad — Julesburg famously moved more than once as the routes shifted.

Why point it out: the byway is a calm, easy way to read the landscape. Interpretive signs explain why the river, the fort, and the rail line put a town here in the first place, which is the same story behind a lot of place names on the eastern plains.

For the route, the historic stops, and current conditions, see the Colorado Department of Transportation byway page and History Colorado.