 In the 1840s, a lot of pioneers were heading west to Oregon and California over trails that passed through central Wyoming. There was something that caught the eye of a few of those travelers. They're noticing something in the creeks, this little shiny substance that's called gold. But Joseph Ashman says there was a reason people simply passed by what they saw here at the time. There's also gold out in California. And at the time, the California gold rush is the big news. So they'd rather go out to California and do their gold mining there.