Last updated: June 27, 2026
Place
Unthank Grave
Photo/L. Kreutzer
Quick Facts
Location:
Alvah Unthank’s grave is 5 miles east of Glenrock, WY, on the south side of Tank Farm Rd. GPS turnout 42.826231 -105.790374
Significance:
This is the carefully preserved grave of 19-year-old gold-seeker Alvah Unthank, who took ill and died on the way from Indiana to California in 1850. The grave retains its original headstone and footstone.
Designation:
Historic site on the California National Historic Site.
OPEN TO PUBLIC:
No
Amenities
2 listed
Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Parking - Auto
A lonely grave lies on a hillside overlooking the North Platte River, the prettiest site available along that stretch of the California Trail in 1850. A headstone and footstone—very few emigrant graves have both—are inscribed with information about the man buried there. His grave properly faces east, and carefully placed rocks shield his remains from scavenging animals. The care with which 19-year-old Alvah H. Unthank was laid to rest in the wilderness over 175 years ago reflects the regard felt for him by his companions.
An online daguerreotype of Alvah shows a handsome young man with broad shoulders, a strong jaw, light (probably blue) eyes, and dark, wavy hair that covered his ears. Not long after that portrait was made, he set out from Newport, IN, in spring 1850 with a company of young men headed for the California goldfields. It was a bad year for cholera, a deadly disease spread by contaminated water and food, causing severe diarrhea and dehydration. Cholera raged along the overland trails that year, and Alvah took ill on June 28, some 90 miles beyond Ft. Laramie, was one of these.
The sickness struck Alvah suddenly and hard. His party camped east of present-day Glenrock, WY, for three days, monitoring his condition, trying to keep him comfortable, and hoping desperately for his recovery. Many other companies on the trail that year were not so kind to their dying companions. A stricken person might perish while jolting over the trail in a stifling hot wagon, or he might be left behind with a couple of men waiting for him to expire so they could shove him into a shallow hole and go catch up with their party. It was a gold rush, and they were rushing. Alvah, though, passed on the morning of July 2 in the company of his caring friend, Pusey Graves, who wrote an account to be sent home to Alvah’s parents.
An artist among the party found some smooth slabs of red sandstone and used a sharpened nail to inscribe “A. H. Unthank. Wayne. Co. Ind. Died Jul. 2 . 1850” on a headstone and “A. H. U.” on a footstone. After placing the slabs upright, Alvah’s friends covered the grave with large stones and planted some blooming cacti on the mound. Then, with nothing left to do for him, they moved on.
Today the Unthank Grave is on private property, but it can be viewed from a turnout on the north side of Tank Farm Road, 5 miles east of Glenrock. At the turnout stand a sandstone Oregon Trail monument erected in 1910 and a more recent concrete monument with a historical plaque. The grave, protected by an iron enclosure built by a Glenrock resident in 1924, is easily identifiable from the roadside, although the original grave markers are difficult to see at that distance. To see Alvah’s daguerreotype and read more about him, visit www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/alvah-unthank-grave.
Site Information
Location (Alvah Unthank’s grave is 5 miles east of Glenrock, WY, on the south side of Tank Farm Rd. GPS turnout 42.826231 -105.790374)