Historic Trails documentary debuts on Wyoming PBS
by Bureau of Land Management
June 1, 2009
A unique documentary film focusing on historic trails and produced as part of the mitigation for the Atlantic Rim Coalbed Natural Gas Development Project, will premiere on Wyoming PBS television at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 2, 2009.
"Wyoming’s Atlantic Rim Historic Trails" documents the unique struggles and accomplishments of early settlers along the Cherokee and Overland Trails and the Rawlins-to-Baggs Wagon Road. These trails, located in the Atlantic Rim region southwest of modern-day Rawlins, Wyo., were in use from 1849 through 1932.
"This documentary’s origin as part of the mitigation for the Atlantic Rim Project is a first for public land management in Wyoming," said Patrick Madigan, Field Manager for the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Rawlins Field Office.
The Atlantic Rim Project will develop 1.35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from federal mineral estate underlying 173,672 acres of BLM-administered public land, 14,060 acres of state land and 82,348 acres of private land. The project area encompasses the area from Baggs to six miles south of Rawlins.
"The Cherokee and Overland Trails and the Rawlins-to-Baggs Wagon Road are important historical resources that provide educational information about the history of Wyoming and the settlement of the American West," stated Madigan. "Preserving this history is important to all Americans," he said.
BLM Archaeologist Nina Trapp said that historical documentation and field work were conducted to record and assess segments of the Cherokee and Overland Trails and the Rawlins-to-Baggs Wagon Road and related historical sites. "Interpretive educational sites and materials were developed and funded by the project proponents as mitigation for the unavoidable adverse effects associated with exploration and production activity in the historic trails environ," Trapp said.
A programmatic agreement to address historic trails mitigation was developed and signed by BLM, the State of Wyoming, State Historic Preservation Office and Wyoming Attorney General, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, Redwine Resources, Inc., Double Eagle Petroleum, Anadarko Exploration and Production, and Warren Resources, Inc. The Oregon-California Trails Association (OCTA) and Alliance for Historic Wyoming also signed the programmatic agreement as interested parties.
BLM Archaeologist Nina Trapp heads up the Programmatic Agreement Mitigation Committee, which was assembled in August, 2007, and includes representatives from most of the signatories. The main activities undertaken to date by the committee include the documentary film, developing three interpretive kiosks, and developing and installing interpretive signs and trail markers in the Atlantic Rim area.
Anadarko Petroleum Corporation and Warren Resources, Inc. underwrote the documentary and hired the production company, Cloud Peak Productions, LLC of Worland, Wyo., she explained.
For more information about the Atlantic Rim Project or Programmatic Agreement Committee activities, contact the Bureau of Land Management Public Affairs Specialist Bruce Collins at 307-328-4329.
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