The Far Country

When the first French Trappers visited Bridger Country, they chronicled what they saw. Huge herds of buffalo stretched to the far horizons. Elk herds dotted the hillsides. Wild horses ran with the deer. The streams were filled with trout and otter. And there were beaver. Thousands of beaver.

Beaver pelts were in high demand among the gentry of Europe. The beaverskin hat was a beautiful thing. Nothing but beaver fur could make a hat as shiny and as smooth. The pelts were used for ladies’ muffs and the collars of fashionable coats. Beaver pelts brought a large dollar return to the trappers. Sometimes the trade made them rich. (John Jacob Astor - of the famed Astor millions and the Waldorf Astoria Hotel- was one of those who gained great wealth trapping and trading in the Rockies with his American Fur Company). Between the French traders, Britain’s Hudson Bay Company, the American Fur Company and a hundred independents - much of the West was trapped out of beaver before the turn of the century in 1900.

But it was great while it lasted. A whole era’s worth of tall tales and epic stories grew around the mountain man and the trappers. Independent cusses with souls owned by none but themselves, the trappers developed their own culture - half Indian, half white and about a quarter pure-blooded grizzly bear thrown in for toughness.

These men were more than 100%. They had to be to live in the early West. They endured harsh winters and miserable heat, Indian attacks, poor food and loneliness. Mauled by grizzlies, they often lived to tell the tale.

Society never seemed to have much hold on any of the mountain men, though an occasional visit back to civilization was usually taken by most of them during their days in the Rockies. They not only trapped and hunted, the mountain men explored. It is from their lips that cartographers got information about the great Louisiana Purchase territory for map making through much of the 1800’s. Trapper/explorers like Colter, Bridger and Carson were often guides for western exploration parties and road seekers.

These extraordinary men led a nation into the wilderness, with memory their only guide. And what memories these must have been!

Their stories are worth telling and retelling for as long as the chickadee sings in the roaring pines and the mountains stand blue against the Western sun. The greatest of the trappers and mountain men traveled and explored this area extensively.

Former Lewis and Clark co-traveler, John Colter, wintered in the area. He was the first white man of record to see Bridger Country, the Sunlight Basin and Yellowstone National Park. Joe Meek visited here, as did Jedediah Smith and Thomas Fitzpatrick. And of course, the greatest mountain man and western explorer of all time, Jim Bridger, was once a very important part of Bridger Country.

Jim Bridger was an amazing man. He is known to have traveled as far south as Mesa Verde and possibly as far north as the Yukon. And he remembered most every step of his journeys well enough to guide others. Map makers of the era relied heavily on Bridger’s memory when working to construct a picture of the vast lands between the Missouri River and the Colorado. And all this from a man who could neither read nor write! But what Bridger may have lacked in education, he made up for in native intellect. His memory was almost infallible. His common sense equally so. Jim Bridger spoke Spanish and numerous Indian dialects. Men and women who knew the old trapper/explorer - Indian and white - always spoke highly of Jim Bridger. He was honest. He was loyal. He was a natural leader and a generous friend. He was a formidable enemy and a man of extraordinary strength - a survivor of countless scrapes with the Indians. (At a skirmish at Pierre’s Hole, west of the Tetons, Bridger stopped two Blackfeet arrows with his back. He carried one of these metal arrowpoints in his flesh for three years - at which time it was dug out by Dr. Marcus Whitman at the annual Green River Rendezvous). In 1864, he and John Bozeman had a race to see who could lead a wagon train to the newly-discovered gold fields of Virginia City via Bozeman City first. Bridger trailed his train through an easier, but slightly longer route, mostly through the territory of friendly Crow Indians and gradually-climbing terrain. His outfit crossed the Clarks Fork just a little south of the present town of Bridger. In the end, the two guides brought their trains into Bozeman about the same time. Bridger’s outfit was undoubtedly in better shape than Bozeman’s, but Bozeman promoted his route as “shorter and faster”. Jim Bridger’s wisdom eventually prevailed. After the Bozeman route became all but unusable as a West Coast artery, due to frequent attacks by Red Cloud's Sioux, emigrants looked most favorably upon the South Pass route to the West Coast. Of course...... Jim Bridger was the first to discover this route and to share it with others.

Bridger’s first annual Jim Bridger Days Celebration to honor this extraordinary man, was held in 1935. Eighty one year old George Bridger Teeples was the guest of honor at this first celebration. Born around Jim Bridger’s Wyoming home (probably Fort Bridger) in 1854, Teeples is considered to be the first white child born in Wyoming....and the last living man to have known the great Jim Bridger personally. The Jim Bridger Memorial was dedicated to “old Gabe” on a sunny 22nd day in August, 1935. A large structure of hundreds of rocks and ore samples set in concrete was unveiled in the city park. Pieces of Sunlight Basin, the Clark’s Fork River basin, Yellowstone Country and points between make up this unusual monument. It is a collection of stones and ores from the trails Jim Bridger walked, lovingly compiled by those who loved and enjoyed the same beautiful places.

Jim Bridger, his eyesight failing and his legendary health declining, spent most of his last years upon a porch on his Missouri farm just south of Kansas City. It is recorded that the old trapper often sat, chin on cane, with his clouded eyes fixed hard on the West.

“I wish I was back there among the mountains again - you can see so much farther in that country,” he said.

And it’s true. You really can see farther... and clearer. ....out here

Bridger's annual Jim Bridger Days Celebration is held the third weekend of July. Please check locally for exact dates. This event is a time for trappers and tall tales - good food and fun - in honor of men like Jim Bridger who lived in and loved the very best of the West.

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