THE NORTHERN 
PACIFIC ROUTE. 
97 
assisted materially in the prosperity of the region by the introduction 
of scientific methods of farming and of handling the crops. 
It seems rather strange that a part of the State so far removed 
from the regular westward routes of early travel and so walled in by 
the. mountains should have been one of the first to be occupied by 
settlers. This was doubtless due to the description of the valley 
Th 
given: by Capt. Clark, who discovered it in 1806. 
e first effort of 
the whites to obtain a foothold here was made by fur traders in the 
vicinity of Three Forks, on Missouri River, but that region, like 
Kentucky in the early days, was the common hunting and fighting 
ground of many Indian tribes, and the trading posts were soon 
swept away. 
The first permanent settlement in the valley was made by John M. 
Bozeman, for whom the town was named, and a party of settlers 
whom he led into the valley in 1864. Another pioneer who entered 
the same year was James Bridger, 
1 
one of the best-known guides, fur 
1Of all the men who renounced the 
conventionalities of civilization and 
cast their lot with the fur traders and 
trappers of the West, one of the most 
remarkable was James Bridger. He was 
well known to almost every western 
explorer and settler in the first half of 
the nineteenth century, but there are 
few written records of the man himself 
St. Louis in 1812, and so the boy grew 
up in the stirring atmosphere of romance 
and adventure of what was then the very 
edge of the t “Wild West.” It is 
therefore of little rials that at the age 
of 18 he joined a party under William 
Ashley to go to the mountains to hunt 
beaver for the Rocky Mountain Fur €o., 
which was organized in 1822 at St. Louis. 
By 1832 he had become a resident partner 
in this company and was generally 
and Indian traders of the time. 
In the years from 1822 to 1870 Bridger 
roamed the country from Montana to 
Mexico and from the Rocky eamaes 
to the Pacific coast, but his headquarters 
built by him on 
River, yo., 
generally known as Fort Bridger. It is 
95558°—Bull. 611—15——7 
said that he was the first white man to 
see Great Salt Lake (in the winter of 
ate but this statement has never 
been ful 
Caguenioubly Bridger played a m 
art in the exploration of the 
West, and his chief claim for rec 
will map 
out any portion of this immense region 
and delineate mountains, 
circular valleys, called 
wonderful accuracy.” 
in many of the Senedak 
streams, and 
feel with 
i has 
the hazy distance of a rapidly 
_— ae ; : 
Of James Bridger’s last years little is 
