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State Historic Preservation Office
Cheyenne Historic Preservation Board receives award from State

National Register of Historic Places


Vore Buffalo Jump

Crook County, Wyoming

Date Added to Register

Wednesday, April 11, 1973

Smithsonian Number

48CK302

Read all about it

Five miles west of the point where Highway 14 intersects the Wyoming-South Dakota state line is the Vore Buffalo Jump Site. The main feature of this archaeological site, situated between Highway 14 and Interstate 90, is a symmetrical, open pit about 200 feet in diameter, forty feet in depth, and containing a thick growth of vegetation. The pit was formed when the gypsum-permeated soil eroded, leaving a sink hole whose sides, sloping at an inclination of between 50 and 60 degrees, were steep enough to cause the crippling or death of buffalo which were stampeded over them. Archaeological investigations in the center of the pit during the 1970s indicated the pit was the site of both the kill and butchering processes. Buffalo bones and projectile points were unearthed to a depth of about fifteen feet. About ten tons of bones, in an excellent state of preservation, were removed from the site. Carbon-14 dating indicates the Vore Site witnessed probably 400 or more years of use beginning about 1300 A.D. and ending about 1700 A.D.

Department of State Parks & Cultural Resources