Highway 287: The Deadliest Road Colorado Decided to Drown

Between Fort Collins, Colorado, and Laramie, Wyoming, U.S. Highway 287 stretches across sixty-five miles of high prairie and rugged red rock. It is a vital artery for truckers, local ranchers, and thousands of college students traveling between two university towns. Yet beneath the pavement lies a history shaped by violence, shifting geography, and tragedy—earning this dangerous two-lane corridor the harrowing title of the "Highway of Death." Now, a seven-mile stretch of U.S. 287 faces an entirely new reckoning. To feed the explosive growth of Colorado's Front Range, civil engineers are preparing to flood the valley behind the hogback ridge, burying the highway, ancient pioneer trails, and decades of history under two hundred and eighty feet of water. But this is not the first time the corridor has been erased. More than a century ago, the arrival of the transcontinental railroad rendered the historic Overland Stage line obsolete, leaving the valley abandoned for nearly seventy years. Discover how the relentless march of progress built this legendary route twice—and why that same force has condemned it to the bottom of a lake.