With the completion of Interstate 70, the old U.S. 40 highway has been “demoted” to Colorado Highway 40 from Agate to Byers (above).

An old section of U.S. 40 southeast of Agate still retains its yellow stripe.

Butterfield’s Overland Despatch Cedar Point Station was located a mile east of Interstate 70 at milepost 350. At an elevation of 5,800 feet, this is the highest point on the Smoky Hill Trail. East of Cedar Point are the headwaters of the Arikaree and Republican (South Fork) Rivers, and the easternmost point of the Arkansas—Platte Divide, which extends west to the base of the Rocky Mountains at Palmer Lake.

Close-up of a portion of the interpretive sign in Lions Park on Strasburg’s Railroad Avenue. Note the keg of whiskey in the center, symbolic of the Kansas Pacific Railway’s worker incentive program. Track was laid east from Denver and the joining of the rails took place less than a mile east of Strasburg  on August 15, 1870.