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The Origins of a Name
You are standing at the point where legends begin. This narrow neck of land is small in size but plays a giant role in the origins of the name Dead Horse Point.
For decades, legends and myths about ghostly horses, cruel cowboys, and leaps of fate have surrounded this land and given it the name Dead Horse Point. Of those, the tale that best provokes the imagination is the legend of the cowboys who worked on this mesa during the late 1800s.
According to the legend, wranglers often drove herds of feral horses across this narrow bottleneck leaving them corralled by the sheer cliffs. On one haunting drive, for reasons still unknown, the cowboys chose the best horses and left the others corralled on the point. With the gate across the neck closed, the remaining horses were trapped with no way out, no water and no hope for survival. Those who found the remains of the unfortunate horses gave this place the name Dead Horse Point. |