Jim Bridger

Jim Bridger. (The West's Most Gifted Scout). , Scout, pathfinder, guide, mountain man, explorer, fur trader, blacksmith, and merchant; Jim Bridger was all of these. He is regarded as one of America's greatest frontiersmen, and overall, the Rocky Mountain West's most gifted scout. , When it came to trapping and hunting skills, locating transcontinental routes, Indian relations, or warfare tactics, guiding the military or settler's wagon trains, Jim Bridger's advice was universally sought. He was the first white man to discover the Great Salt Lake. Mountain ranges and peaks, passes, and an army fort carry his name. His descriptions of present day Yellowstone Park's hot geysers and wonders caused many people to believe he was a liar or suffered from delusions. He was a great story teller. Once, in describing a knock-down, drag-out battle with an Indian, he ended the story with a long pause. When the children asked excitedly how it ended, Bridger replied, "He done killed me!" , Jim Bridger was born in 1804 in Richmond, Virginia. Orphaned at age fourteen in St. Louis, Missouri, Bridger took a job ferrying people across the Mississippi River several miles below its junction with the mighty Missouri River. The Missouri signaled a different world, carrying in its torrential waters huge trees, dead buffalo, and trappers with enormous quantities of animal fur. The river provided his first hint of great economic opportunity and danger west to the Rocky Mountains. , Soon he became a blacksmith apprentice, learning to shoe horses, set steel wagon wheels, make animal traps and large grappling hooks for the river boatmen. Everyone came to the blacksmith shop: bullwhackers, Indians, teamsters, voyageurs, fur traders, and horse traders. He met them all, both foul-witted and kind, and the stories they told of the Rocky Mountain West made Jim, a shy and cautious young man, dream of its opportunities. Completing his apprentice contract in four years, he was hired to accompany an expedition up the Missouri River to its source. Now age eighteen, an accomplished blacksmith and a fair hunter, he was on his way. He soon joined a fur trapping company, combining hunting and Indian skills with a phenomenal memory of western rivers and landmarks. The rest of his life he would wear buckskin and moccasins. He married three Indian women, outliving all but the last. , People accompanying Bridger on expeditions described his instincts as "uncanny," and military commanders who employed him as a scout usually suffered badly when they overrode his advice. Many officers then returning from the Civil War underestimated the military skill and bravery of the Indian and suffered humiliating defeats. Bridger had no such illusions, having lived with and among Indians many years. Military reports describe Bridger guiding patrols around or between warring tribes. He spoke nearly a dozen Indian languages, as well as frontier French, Spanish, and English. , In exploring most of the West, Bridger also studied the rhythm of seasons, plants, and the habits and sounds of animals and Indians. He invariably knew what they were up to, where they were apt to go, and how they would react under different circumstances. , Anecdotes about his patience and habitual caution are legendary and become more meaningful when one realizes the average lifespan of a Mountain Man in the wild was only three years. As an example, when peering over a hilltop, Bridger would cover his dark hair with a light cloth, so as to be invisible against the sky behind him. Not wanting to obliterate tracks in case he made a mistake in reading a tangled trail, he followed off to the side, looking several yards ahead rather than down, which allowed him to track quickly. , When beaver trapping was largely played out in 1842, Jim Bridger established a trading post where the Oregon and Overland Trail converged in Wyoming, about 100 miles east of the Great Salt Lake. He sold supplies and gave valuable advice to wagon trains heading west to Bear Lake, Idaho, Oregon, and California, and later served the Mormons heading for the Great Salt Lake area. The trading post was leased to the Army as a fort which carries his name. , In later years, Bridger was hired by Major Berthoud, a Civil War veteran who was commissioned to lay out an overland stage route between frontier Denver and Provo, Utah. Bridger led Berthoud over what is now Berthoud Pass and possibly over the very spot where this sculpture now stands. Bridger also led mounted army cavalry around warring Indian tribal skirmishes on the Blue River in present day Grand County just upstream of its confluence with the Colorado River. , Jim Bridger died in Westport, Missouri, in 1881 at the age of 77, longing to see his beloved Rocky Mountains once again. He spent his last years telling tall tales and entertaining youngsters on his porch. This legendary scout, hunter, and explorer, now totally blind, still held an accurate map of every Western mountain range, river, and valley in his head. But now trying to walk in the woods just back of the house, he often had to be rescued by his daughter and led, hopelessly lost, back to the house. , This plaque was donated by the Fraser River Valley Lions Club