FORT BRIDGER, WYOMING: Everyone knows who Jim Bridger was, right—the famous, 19th-century frontiersman, fur trapper, and wilderness guide, who was among the first to visit the Yellowstone region and to explore the Great Salt Lake area, reaching it by bullboat in 1824. Jim left his mark on much of the American West.
My husband and I have done a lot of camping in the Uintahs and visited Fort Bridger a few times. And the mountains looking over Fort Bridger feature in some of my books, like Taming Jenna, Priscilla, Thalia, Cadence, and Ophelia. I especially enjoy attending the Mountain Man fair at Fort Bridger; lots of fascinating things to see and do, intriguing people in costume, demonstrations, and fabulous wares for sale.
Jim Bridger and Louis Vasquez established Fort Bridger in 1843 on the Black’s Fork of the Green River to trade with the Native American tribes Jim had befriended over the years, and with westward-bound emigrants. The area, known as Bridger Valley, served as a crossroads for the Oregon/California Trail, the Mormon Trail, the Pony Express, the Transcontinental Railroad, and the Lincoln Highway.
Consisting of two, 40-foot-long, rude double-log houses, joined with a pen for horses, the first fort also boasted a blacksmith’s shop, which many emigrants welcomed after months on the trails. Some found the fort disappointing, poorly outfitted, and little more than a few rough-hewn log buildings.
On July 7, 1847, the Mormon Pioneer Company spent a day there but disliked the inflated prices. Still, a small group of them settled nearby, causing tensions between them and Bridger, who claimed he violated federal law by selling liquor and ammunition to the Indians. In response, Brigham Young, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a federal Indian agent, sent his Mormon militia to the fort in 1853. Knowing the militia’s reputation, Bridger fled. Later that year, the Mormons established Fort Supply, about 12 miles south of Fort Bridger, specifically to serve the Mormon emigrants.
Bridger complained to U. S. Senator Gen. B. F. Butler, claiming the Mormons robbed him of over $100,000 in goods and
supplies and threatened to kill him. The following spring, Young sent a detachment of well-armed Mormons to take control of both Fort Bridger and the Green River ferries, both of which became integral parts of the Mormon settlement plans for the region. Alterations included a thick stone wall around the fort. In July 1855, Bridger returned and agreed to sell to the Mormons.
Jim spent the next decade as a guide and an army scout in the early Indian wars. By 1868, Bridger’s rheumatism and failing eyesight sent him home to retire at his Westport farm, where he cared for his apple trees. He died at the age of 77 on July 17, 1881. After his first wife, a Flathead Indian, died in childbirth, and his second wife, a Ute, also died in childbirth, he married the daughter of Shoshone Chief Washakie. These three wives, however, managed to give Jim five children who lived.
In the fall of 1857, Jim’s old fort became embroiled in a new controversy when President Buchanan sent U.S. troops to Utah Territory to enforce federal authority and to install federally appointed territorial officers. This began what became known as the Utah War. To keep the fort from being seized, Mormon militia under “Wild Bill” Hickman and his brother burned both it and Fort Supply. Johnston’s army spent a miserable winter with little shelter and food.
Wikipedia says that in the winter of 1857, the army established temporary Camp Scott on the site. In the spring of 1858, tension between the Mormons and the U.S. military subsided. The army took over and rebuilt Fort Bridger as a base for troops whose later jobs included protecting laborers on the transcontinental railroad, gold miners at South Pass, and Shoshone Indians near the fort, and later, after the establishment of the reservation on Wind River.
When the Utah War ended, the U.S. government refused to honor either Bridger’s or the Mormons’ claim to the property. 
Instead, it turned the commercial parts of its operation over to William Alexander Carter, who had come west with Johnston’s army as a sutler. Along with his family, Carter lived at the fort, rebuilding and stocking it and eventually becoming Wyoming’s first millionaire.
Various volunteer units of the U.S. Army occupied the post during the Civil War. Regular army units manned the post from 1866 to 1878. It stood abandoned until the army occupied it from 1880 to 1890. At the end of the Indian Wars, the army closed it for good. Many buildings were sold and dismantled.
In 1993, the thirty-eight-acre site was named a Wyoming Historical Landmark and Museum. Parts of the 1850s Mormon stone wall have recently been the subject of archaeological explorations. Some restored buildings remain at the fort, along with a reconstructed trading post, an interpretive archaeological site, and a museum housing artifacts from the fort’s various periods of use. It is well worth visiting.
Have you been there? Tell me about it. I’m giving away a $10 Amazon gift certificate to one commenter and a copy of one of the ebooks mentioned in this blog to another commenter.
Let’s stay in touch!
Two of them, also scared and running didn’t really get just how isolated they were going to be…..for the rest of their life.
Blake, and I’ve been invited to be a guest author on the blog today.
The Legacy of Rocking K Ranch is something I’ve wanted to do myself for a long time, but it’s just never quite worked out.
The Legacy of Rocking K Ranch
