Fort Bridger

Fort Bridger was originally established as a trading post by Jim Bridger and his partner, Louis Vasquez, in 1843. Built near Black's Fork on the Green River in what is now southwestern Wyoming, the post offered a blacksmith shop and supplies to travelers on the Oregon Trail.

Jim Bridger was born in 1804 in Richmond, Virginia, and moved to St. Louis as a young boy. In 1822, he came west as a member of the Ashley Henry Fur Company and soon established his reputation as a trapper, trader and guide during the height of the beaver trapping era. As the supply of beaver dwindled, the number of emigrants passing through increased steadily, therefore Bridger built his trading post primarily for the emigrant trade rather than the fur trade. It consisted of several crude log buildings and a corral enclosed by a log stockade.

Among the early emigrants who stopped at Bridger's trading post were Mormons fleeing persecution in the East. Since Brigham Young and other church leaders needed a place where their people could rest and obtain supplies, they built

Fort Supply in 1853, located approximately twelve miles south of Bridger's Post. In 1855 the Mormons purchased the trading post from Vasquez, and with Fort Supply they were able to provision the Mormons as well as other emigrants heading west.

Mormon occupation of the post lasted only two years. Friction developed between the newly-established Mormon state and the federal government. As a result, President Buchanan dispatched U.S. troops to the area in 1857. Because of the advance of an army led by Colonel Albert Sidney Johnston and guided by Jim Bridger, the Mormons burned their forts and retreated to Salt Lake City. In November, 1857, when Johnston and his men arrived at the fort they found only the charred remains. Johnston ordered his men to set up a temporary camp, known as Camp Scott, about l½ miles south of the present site of Fort Bridger, where they remained for the winter. In the spring of 1858, Johnston continued on to Salt Lake City. The soldiers remaining behind began to build a permanent fort, utilizing the cobblestone wall built by the Mormons. By 1859 a total of 29 buildings had been constructed.

During the early 1860's the fort served as a station on the Pony Express and Overland stage routes. With the outbreak of the Civil War, military personnel at Fort Bridger were ordered east. For nearly a year, the post was without troops until W .A. Carter, post sutler, organized a volunteer militia of local citizens. Volunteer regiments from Nevada and California garrisoned the fort from 1862 until 1866. Early in April, 1866, a company of Galvanized yankees (former Confederate prisoners of war allowed to serve in the Union Army on the Western frontier) were sent to Fort Bridger.

By mid-summer of 1866 the last of the volunteers were mustered out and the fort was garrisoned by two companies of regular infantry under Brevet Major Andrew S. Burt. Like most frontier military installations, Fort Bridger remained primarily an infantry post. At one point it garrisoned 350 troops.

In the late 1860's, detachments from the fort were assigned to escort work crews from the Union Pacific Railroad as they made their way west. After the completion of the railroad the fort also served as a supply center for troops campaigning in the western portion of Wyoming Territory.

In addition to military duties, Fort Bridger served as the Shoshone Indian Agency where in August, 1866, an important treaty was signed. It also served as a strategic supply center for geological and palentological surveys and mining expeditions which were active in the areas in the 1870's.

A period of relative peace settled upon the valley in the 1870's, despite the "Indian Wars" taking place on the Northern Plains. As a result, the post was abandoned in 1878. Because of an uprising by Ute Indians in Colorado, Fort Bridger was reactivated on June 28, 1880. Additional barracks and quarters were constructed and general improvements made. Further construction occurred in 1884, at which time stone structures were added, a water line laid, and the post commander's house built. As the frontier became settled, the military significance of Fort Bridger waned, and the last detachment of soldiers left on November 6, 1890. After its abandonment the fort remained a community center and the home of the family of Judge W.A. Carter. After his death in 1881, his wife Mary succeeded him as post trader and was appointed caretaker of the empty fort. Many buildings were sold at auction. Some, though remodeled, are still in use in the Fort Bridger area.

In the late 1920's the state of Wyoming acquired the site through the efforts of the Wyoming Historical Landmark Commission. Since that time Fort Bridger has been preserved and maintained as a lasting reminder of Wyoming's colorful past.

Emigrant Trail

In the summer of 1843, Jesse Applegate, together with 1,000 friends, 300 covered wagons and several thousand head of livestock, crossed the Missouri River and left the United States to "go westering". Others had gone before, but the huge 1843 emigration would be the first to reach the Pacific northwest with their wagons in a single travel season to "officially" open the famed Oregon Trail.

Their destination was "Oregon Country" – a vast British-claimed region that stretched from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific and from Mexican California to Russian Alaska. In 1843, not much more was known about Oregon. What they did know was that it would take almost six months to complete the 2,000 mile Journey.

The Trail was already established by fur trappers and traders who had been using the Platte-Sweetwater-South Pass route to reach the Rocky Mountains for two decades. Beyond South Pass, Jim Bridger was building a trading post " ...in the road of the emigrants on Black's Fork of Green River ..." which would be ready to greet Jesse Applegate.

During the next 25 years, a whole system of trading posts, way-stations, forts, ferryboats and bridges would spring up along the road to serve the emigration, the overland stages, the Pony Express and the transcontinental telegraph. Branches and cutoffs from the original Trail would lead emigrants to the Salt Lake valley and the California gold fields.

Physical evidence of the Oregon-California-Mormon-Pony Express Trail can still be found in Wyoming. The wagon wheel ruts can be followed by sight across most of the state, just as the pioneers did 150 years ago. Many of the pioneer graves have been located, marked and protected. Emigrant names still appear along the Trail, fading now on the soft sandstone cliffs overlooking the Green and Blacks Fork rivers but appearing to have been carved only yesterday on the hard granite surfaces along the Sweetwater.

The buildings, structures and ruins along the Trail date from the later and most active period of its history - 1849 and beyond. Archaeological evidence remains of Jim Bridger's original trading post, but the buildings date from the time of military occupation.

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