Cemetery

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Location: Rockypoint Road, 0.5 mile E of Rockypoint, WY
GPS:   44d 54m 55s    -105d 5m 10s
Map / Satellite Image: Google Link
 

Travel Directions:
From Gillette, follow WY-59 north 26.6 miles to the “Rockypoint” sign (Heald Road).
Turn Right (E) onto Heald Road and go 1.9 miles to the Rockypoint Road intersection.
Turn Left (N) on Rockypoint Road and follow it 25 miles to the Rockypoint Cemetery. (Reference: 44d 54m 54s, 105d 5m 10s)

Remarks:
Annie Proulx never visited Rockypoint (or “Rocky Point,” as it seems to be called much of the time), but the small community cemetery here has captured the imagination of many pilgrims as they make their way to Lightning Flat. In use since the 1920s, it consists of approximately 90 graves. Not all of them are marked. Old maps show a church at this site.

Of special interest are several of the tombstones which incorporate “lamb” iconography, a symbolic tie between the labors and the faith of those at rest here.

The setting is an open one. From here, the horizon is essentially flat and empty in all directions, making it quite easy to appreciate the enduring phrase, “grieving plain.”

See:
http://files.usgwarchives.net/wy/campbell/cemetery/rckypnt.txt

Important:
Fill your automobile tank with gas at Gillette. Bring water and a snack.

Quotation:
“Bumping down the washboard road Ennis passed the country cemetery fenced with sagging sheep wire, a tiny fenced square on the welling prairie, a few graves bright with plastic flowers, and didn’t want to know Jack was going in there, to be buried on the grieving plain.” [1]

[1] Brokeback Mountain - Story to Screenplay by Annie Proulx, Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana (Scribner) ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-9416-4, page 27.

Pictures of surrounding area:

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www.FindingBrokeback.com

  Revised 27 December 2010