The Overland Trail was a critical route in the westward expansion of the United States. Stretching from western Kansas to Salt Lake City, the trail passed through parts of modern-day Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. In its early days, the trail was primarily used by people traveling west to reach Salt Lake City and California, as well as mining settlements in the Rockies during the Colorado Gold Rush. 

The Overland Trail was developed with heavy emphasis as a stagecoach mail line, serving the Overland Stage Company owned by Ben Holladay and later Wells Fargo. This route was valued heavily by mail coaches and travelers for two reasons. One, it avoided the more congested trails like the Oregon Trail to the north and the Santa Fe Trail to the south. It also ventured around more heavily mountainous areas, making travel less dangerous. 

In Colorado, an offshoot of the Overland Trail ran through what would later be known as the Front Range, the significantly settled area between Fort Collins and Denver. Fort Laramie, located in present-day Wyoming, was a major military outpost along the Overland Trail, providing military protection to settlers from Native Americans, with which relations worsened significantly in this period. 

The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 altered the usage and significance of overland stagecoach trails. By the late 1870s and early 1880s, railroad networks were becoming a more reliable, safer, and luxurious form of transport, and the development of tourism to the region began to grow. By the early 20th century, stagecoach travel was essentially dead. The explosion of the automobile industry and its promise of individualized travel led to the growth of road networks and highway systems, which largely replaced railroad travel in the Western United States. However, large portions of early highway networks in Colorado and Wyoming, like the Lincoln Highway and I-80, were heavily based on the Overland Trail route.