228 FORT BRIDGER — BLACK'S FORK — MILITARY POST. 



fuel, grass, and water abundant, and at convenient points. Lat. 

 41° 13' 46^' ; long. 110° 48' 00''. 



Thursday, September 5. — Morning cool and slightly cloudy. 

 Ther. at sunrise, 37°. A march of sixteen miles brought us to 

 Fort Bridger, on Black's Fork of Green River. This is a trading- 

 post much frequented by the Shoshonees, Utahs, and Uintah In- 

 dians, and is owned and conducted by Messrs. Vasquez and 

 Bridger, from both of whom we received the kindest attention and 

 every assistance which it was in their power to render. 



Black's Fork, upon which the fort is situated, is a considerable 

 stream of excellent, clear, sweet water, which rises in the Bear 

 Biver mountains, and discharges its waters into Green Kiver, or 

 the Bio Colorado of the Gulf of California. A inile and a-half 

 above the fort, it divides into four streams, which reunite two miles 

 below, forming several islands, upon the westernmost of which the 

 fort is beautifully located, in the midst of a level, fertile plain, 

 covered with a luxuriant growth of excellent grass. Numerous 

 groves of willows and cotton-wood, with thickets of hawthorn, 

 fringe the margins of the streams, and afford fuel and timber for 

 the necessities of man, and shelter for cattle from the inclemency 

 of the winter. Black and white currants are tolerably abun- 

 dant, and are now ripening upon the banks of the rivulets. The 

 emigrant road forks here, one branch leading to Fort Hall, by the 

 Soda Springs, and the other, pursuing a more southerly course, 

 leads to the City of the Salt Lake, the distance to which by the 

 travelled road is one hundred and twenty-four and a-half miles : 

 this, may be materially shortened by a judicious location of the 

 route. 



From its position with regard to several powerful Indian tribes 

 which inhabit this region, Fort Bridger offers many advantages 

 for the establishment in its vicinity of a military post. It occu- 

 pies the neutral ground between the Shoshonees and the Crows on 

 the north ; the Ogallalahs and Sioux on the east ; the Cheyennes 

 on the south-east ; and the warlike tribe of the Utahs on the south. 

 A competent force established at this point would have great in- 

 fluence in preventing the bloody collisions which frequently occur 

 between these hostile tribes, and would afford protection and aid 

 to the great tide of emigration which, for years to come, must con- 

 tinue to flow in one ceaseless current to Oregon and California. 



The party remained here several days, to readjust the packs, and 

 to complete the final arrangements for crossing the plains. The 



