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12/17/15 OT 2: The Forts Awaken




Fort Bridger was originally a 19th-century fur trading outpost established in 1842 on Blacks Fork of the Green River and later a vital resupply point for wagon trains on the Oregon Trail, California Trail andMormon Trail. The Army established a military post here in 1858 during the Utah War until it was finally closed in 1890. A small town, Fort Bridger, Wyoming, remains near the fort and takes its name from it.

James Bridger, known as Jim Bridger (March 17, 1804 – July 17, 1881), was among the foremostmountain men, trappers, scouts and guides who explored and trapped the Western United States during the decades of 1820–1850, as well as mediating between native tribes and encroaching whites. He was ofEnglish ancestry, and his family had been in North America since the early colonial period.[1]

Jim Bridger had a strong constitution that allowed him to survive the extreme conditions he encountered walking the Rocky Mountains from what would become southern Colorado to the Canadian border. He had conversational knowledge of French, Spanish and several native languages. He would come to know many of the major figures of the early west, including Kit Carson, George Armstrong Custer, Hugh Glass, John Fremont, Joseph Meek, and John Sutter.