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Ice
Slough
Location
of sign - roadside 9.5 miles west of Jeffrey City on U.S. 287
in Wyoming.
Photo
taken May 2008
Text
of sign:
Ice
Slough is a small stream that flows into the Sweetwater River five miles east
of here. In front of this point is a slough (i.e. a
marsh
or shallow un-drained depression). The Slough gave the name to the stream
east of here. In the "Ice Slough" the marshes
soils
and plants insulated the previous winters ice and it melted slowly throughout
the summer. Under the marshes a thick mat of ice
could
be found late into June or early July. Westward bound immigrants would
stop their wagons here for the purpose of breaking
out
chunks of ice to use in their drinks and to preserve meat. William
Clayton's 1848 "Latter-Day Saints' Emigrants' Guide" called
this
the "ice spring" and wrote "This is in a low, swampy spot of
land on the right side of the road". Ice may generally be found
by
digging
down about two feet." In 1854 Alonzo Delano traveled up the valley
of the Sweetwater. While not giving the exact
location
of where he stopped he wroted on June 26th "...about four o'clock in the
afternoon, on the borders of a morass, perhaps
a
mile in length by a half a mile in breadth. Some of the boys, thinking
that water could be easily obtained, took a spade, and going
out
on the wild grass, commenced digging. About a foot from the surface,
instead of water, they struck a beautiful layer of ice, five
or
six inches in thickness." By late summer the ice had
disappeared. Today, due to a number of factors, the slough has nearly
dried
up and thus little ice forms here in the winter.
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