 I'm walking on this section of the first federally funded road project in the western U.S. No, it's not the Lincoln Highway or an obscure section of interstate, it's the Lander Cut-Off. The Lander Cut-Off, also known as the Lander Trail or the Lander Road, was part of a larger effort undertaken by the federal government to create a national wagon road. Frederick Lander was a soldier, surveyor, and engineer tasked with surveying this national wagon road. While most of Lander's route followed the existing California trail, Lander constructed an entirely new route between South Pass, Wyoming, and Fort Hall, Idaho. The Cut-Off was completed in 1859 under budget and a head of schedule. In building a true road rather than improvised ruts, Lander's crews moved about 62,000 cubic yards of earth and constructed seven bridges. The Cut-Off crossed farther north than most immigrant routes, bypassing Fort Bridger, crossing the Green River near Big Piney, traversing the Salt River Range in Star Valley to reach the mountains of Idaho. The last wagons to cross the Lander Cut-Off were observed as late as 1912. Much of the route is still accessible today from public roads. From the University of Wyoming Extension, this is Wendy Kelly, Exploring the Nature of Wyoming.