This is one of the welcome landmarks along the 2,000-mile Oregon Trail, traversed by thousands of domestic emigrants who headed west, seeking a fortune or better life in the last half of the 19th century. Now a national monumen (whose visitor center appears in the foreground), the formation is the towering, sandstone Scotts Bluff in western Nebraska, which they (and Pony Express riders) came upon after riding or walking hundreds of miles across Nebraska's flat plains and low sandhills. Photo by Carol Highsmith, 2022.