During the middle of the 19th century, it formed a prominent and well-known landmark on the Oregon, Mormon, and California emigrant trails.

Many of these emigrants carved their names on it, and it was described by early missionary and explorer Father Pierre-Jean De Smet in 1840 as the Register of the Desert.

It is located in the high plateau region of central Wyoming, north of the Sentinel Rocks ridge and adjacent to the Sweetwater River.

Pioneering wagon parties bound for Oregon or California usually left the Missouri River in the early spring and hoped to reach the rock by July 4 (Independence Day in the United States), in order to reach their destinations before the first mountain snowfalls.

[5] John C. Frémont camped a mile below this site on August 1, 1843 and made this entry in the journal of his 1843–1844 expedition:[6] Everywhere within six or eight feet of the ground, where the surface is sufficiently smooth, and in some places sixty or eighty feet above, the rock is inscribed with the names of travelers.