Last updated: June 27, 2026
Place
Ayres Natural Bridge
Photo/L. Kreutzer
Quick Facts
Location:
Ayres Natural Bridge County Park is at 448 County Rd 13/Ayres Natural Bridge Rd, 10 miles west of Douglas, WY. GPS 42.734755 -105.611112
Significance:
Overland emigrants sometimes made a side-trip 1 ½ miles south of the trail corridor to visit this geological wonder: a natural stone bridge with sparkling LaPrele Creek running beneath.
Designation:
Historic site on the California, Mormon Pioneer, and Oregon National Historic Trails.
Amenities
9 listed
Benches/Seating, Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Parking - Auto, Picnic Shelter/Pavilion, Picnic Table, Playground, Restroom - Seasonal, Scenic View/Photo Spot, Trailhead
Overlanders with the curiosity to make a 1 ½-mile side-trip off the trail, climb down a steep canyon wall, and bushwhack through heavy streamside vegetation could view a geological wonder unlike anything Easterners had seen before: a natural stone bridge with a creek passing beneath it.
Among the first travelers to see and write about it was newspaperman Matthew Field, who visited the site on July 12, 1843. There he saw “a remarkable mountain gorge—a ‘natural bridge’ of solid rock, over a rapid torrent, the arch being regular as tho’ shaped by art.” The bridge stood at the bottom of a deep gorge with “wild cliffs, 300 feet perpendicular…and the noisy current swept along among huge fragments of rock at our feet.” To view it, he wrote, his party made a “dangerous descent, and forced our way through an almost impervious thicket, being compelled to take the bed of the stream in gaining a position below.”
William Clayton, of the 1847 vanguard company of Latter-day Saints, mentioned the bridge in his journal, too, although his odd description suggests that he did not see it himself but instead recorded what other members of the company tried to explain to him. It was, he wrote, a “tunnel…high enough for a man to stand upright in, and when standing at the entrance one can see the light through on the other side. It seems as though this tunnel has been formed by some strange feat of nature.”
Gold-seeker Cephas Arms, who made the strenuous side-trip on July 3, 1849, called the site “one of the wildest scenes I ever beheld.” This natural stone bridge, now called Ayres Natural Bridge, today lies within a small, scenic county park 15 miles west of Douglas, WY, and is accessible by a good public road. It is one of very few natural bridges in the US with a stream, LaPrele Creek, that passes beneath its arch, and CNN’s Travel page has named it one of the 15 “best natural bridges around the world.” The site is named for the Ayres ranching family, who donated the scenic property for public use in 1919.
Site Information
Location (Ayres Natural Bridge County Park is at 448 County Rd 13/Ayres Natural Bridge Rd, 10 miles west of Douglas, WY. GPS 42.734755 -105.611112)