Fort Bridger

Fort Bridger was originally a 19th-century fur trading outpost established in 1842, on Blacks Fork of the Green River, in what is now Uinta County, Wyoming, United States. It became a vital resupply point for wagon trains on the Oregon Trail, California Trail, and Mormon 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. Bridger's Trading Post The post was established by the mountain man Jim Bridger, after whom it is named, and Louis Vasquez. In December 1843, Bridger wrote Pierre Chouteau Jr., "I have established a small fort, with a blacksmith shop and a supply of iron in the road of emigrants on Black Fork of Green River, which promises fairly." According to Stanley Vestal, "His fort consisted simply of an eight-foot stockade, with a corral adjoining on the north. Within that stockade stood four log cabins with flat dirt roofs. One of these housed Bridger's forge and carpenter's bench, another his store, the third his family and possibles, while the fourth was the home of his partner." On 19 October 1852, Mrs. Benjamin G. Ferris visited with her husband, and described the fort as "- a long, low, strongly-constructed log building, surrounded by a high wall of logs, stuck endwise in the ground." On 9 March 1854, Bridger filed a claim with the General Land Office, for the around the fort. Richard Francis Burton visited the fort in August 1860, and later wrote, "Colonel Bridger, when an Indian trader, placed this post upon a kind of neutral ground between the Snakes and the Crows (Hapsaroke) on the north, the Oglalas and other Sioux to the east, the Arapahoes and Cheyennes on the south, and various tribes of Yutas (Utahs) on the southwest. Bridger, perhaps the most picturesque figure in early Wyoming, was often called the "Daniel Boone" of the Rockies. Bridger’s Pass, which he discovered, was also named for him. In 1845, Lansford Hastings published a guide entitled The Emigrant's Guide to Oregon and California, which advised California emigrants to leave the Oregon Trail at Fort Bridger, pass through the Wasatch Range across the Great Salt Lake Desert (an 80-mile waterless drive), loop around the Ruby Mountains, and rejoin the California Trail about seven miles west of modern Elko, Nevada (now Emigrant Pass).