MOUNTAIN MAN MEMORIAL

JOHN COLTER

Born and raised in Virginia in the 1770s, he became a valued member of the Lewis and Clarke Expedition from 1803 to 1806. Colter remained in the mountains to trap and explore and was among the first American “Free Trappers” in the Rocky Mountains, along with Joseph Dickson and Forrest Hancock in 1806 – 1807. He was the first to explore the Big Horn Basin, the Yellowstone, and the Grand Teton Regions. During his great journey of discovery, he found “Colter’s Hell” west of Cody, Wyoming. Captured by the Blackfeet in 1803, he was forced to run for his life. Outdistancing the entire tribe for seven miles he survived, naked and weaponless, to become a legend in his own lifetime. John Colter was the first true “Mountain Man.” He died of disease in 1813, unheralded but not forgotten.

JIM BRIDGER

James Bridger was a mountain man, hunter, trapper, fur trader, emigrant guide, and Army scout. James Bridger was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1804 and moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 1812. He served as a blacksmith’s apprentice from 1818 to 1822 and came west with the 1822 Ashley-Henry Expedition. He discovered the Great Salt Lake in 1824 and visited what is now Yellowstone Park in 1830. In 1833 he became a full partner in the fur trading firm of Sublette, Fraeb, Gervais, Bridger, and Fitzpatrick. Anticipating the influx of immigrants, he established Ft. Bridger to resupply and repair the wagon trains. Jim served as a guide and scout for the Army until 1868. After his discharge, “Old Gabe” retired to his farm in Missouri where he died on July 17, 1881.

GEORGE DROUILLARD

Born to a French Canadian father and Shawnee mother in 1775, Drouillard joined the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1803 as chief interpreter and hunter. Lewis said of him, “I scarcely know how we should exist were it not for the exertions of this excellent hunter.” While thus employed, he was possibly the first white man to trap on the upper Missouri River. In 1807, he joined Manuel Lisa’s trading expedition. During two solitary winter treks on foot to notify various tribes of Lisa’s fort on the Yellowstone, Drouillard journeyed up the Stinking Water (Shoshone River) near this spot. His explorations of this and other major rivers to the east totaled 500 miles, and he produced an important map upon which William Clark and later cartographers relied heavily. Trapping near the Three Forks with the Missouri Fur Company, he was killed by Blackfeet Indians in May 1810.

JEDEDIAH SMITH

Born in Jerico, N.Y. the sixth of fourteen children, Jed was destined to influence the Westward expansion of the United States as few men have done. Influenced by Lewis and Clark’s exploits he joined Ashley’s trapping expedition in 1822, soon became a partner and then owner in 1827. A natural leader, devout Christian, and tireless exployer, Jed’s discovery popularized the South Pass crossing of the Rockies. He was the first man to travel overland to California and first to travel the coast from California to the Columbia. He survived near death from thirst and starvation, maulings of a grizzly and attacks by Arikara, Mojave, and Kelewatset Indians. Killed by Comanches near Fargo Spring, Kansas, his body was never found but his legacy lives on as his trails of discovery became the highways for America’s westward migration.