09/17/2026
If Wagon Wheel Gap could talk… it would have a few stories. 👀
This photograph, taken sometime between 1879 and 1894, shows the Rio Grande winding through Wagon Wheel Gap long before Highway 149 carried travelers along the Silver Thread Scenic Byway.
The Ute people knew the hot springs here as “Little Medicine,” valued for their healing properties. By the 1870s, Wagon Wheel Gap had become a stage stop, supply town and the site of the first tollgate between South Fork and Lake City.
And that name? One story traces the name to the Baker prospecting party of the early 1860s and a wagon wheel left behind near the Rio Grande. Other historical accounts describe travelers finding a collection of abandoned or broken wagon wheels scattered through the Gap. And local lore offers an even more dramatic version involving the Ute people and a wagon wheel suspended above the river.
What we do know is that by the 1870s, Wagon Wheel Gap was the name that stuck.
Nearly 150 years after this photograph was taken, the river still winds through the same dramatic canyon, and travelers are still making their way through the Gap.
Some stretches of the Silver Thread aren’t just scenic. They’re a drive through history.
📷 Historic photograph of Wagon Wheel Gap, circa 1879–1894, via Wikipedia/DPLA.
