Lessons from the Fur Trade:
Colonialism, “Boom-and-Bust,” and A Trail to Somewhere Else
By Phil Roberts
The brief 16-year period of the in Wyoming illustrates enduring truths in the economic development of the state. While none of the events occurred in the 20th century, striking parallels can be drawn from the fur trade which help explain the evolution of later industries in Wyoming, including agriculture and cattle, tourism and the mineral industry. The product was natural resource-based, the market for the product was virtually non-existent within the state, and it was subject to wild fluctuations in prices depending on international trends.
It must be emphasized that none of these characteristics are unique to Wyoming. Similar conditions apply to any colonial economy. Nonetheless, what makes studying the fur trade period useful is that, to a great extent, Wyoming remains colonial. Even at the dawn of the new millennium, primary products come from natural resource extraction rather than from manufacturing. Further, like employees in modern-day mining, the earliest white travelers never considered Wyoming as a place for permanent settlement. It was simply a route to somewhere else. Locating in what is now Wyoming was a temporary sojourn or else it was simply harsh passage toward more promising opportunities in other directions.
The origins of the fur trade in Wyoming and to the use of Wyoming as a “trail” can be traced to the Lewis and Clark expedition. Although the famed explorers never stepped foot into Wyoming, the interest they generated from their reports after their return fueled tremendous interest in the West.1 Further, one of their party, John Colter, became the first white American to step foot within Wyoming. Colter, a Virginia-born, probably illiterate mountain man, had gone with the famous explorers to the West Coast.2 Prior to the onset of the expedition, he had “signed” the agreement that he would not be released from their service until the conclusion of the round trip. Nevertheless, during the Lewis and Clark party’s return to St. Louis in 1806, the party encountered two trappers along the Missouri River, probably in the neighborhood of present-day Omaha, Nebraska. There, Colter asked his bosses if he could leave their employ, given that they were fairly close to St. Louis, to travel back up river with the two men to the fur fields of the northern Rockies. Lewis and Clark reluctantly agreed that Colter had upheld most of the agreement and allowed him to leave.
By the end of the year, Colter was seeking out good fur trapping areas and planning excursions to find likely Indians with whom to trade. An employee of the New Orleans-born trader Manuel Lisa, Colter was headquartered at Fort Manuel Lisa where the Big Horn River enters the Yellowstone in present-day southern Montana. From that location, Colter set out in the late fall of 1807 to see if he could locate likely trading partners or fur trapping grounds to the south. He traveled afoot, carrying a 40-pound pack of trade goods, a musket and accompanied only by a dog.
His exact route is subject to debate, but most authorities believe he entered Wyoming through Sunlight Basin, north of present-day Cody, walked to the south until he encountered the present Shoshone River just west of Cody.3 There, he saw hot springs and, probably, active geysers. The springs exuded the pungent smells of sulfur and he dubbed the river, the “Stinkingwater.” (Is it little wonder that Cody area residents at the turn of the century petitioned the Wyoming legislature to change it to the less odorous name, Shoshone River?)4 Depending on the source, Colter either walked west toward present Yellowstone National Park or in a southerly direction toward the distant Owl Creek range. Some historians believe he walked due south, over the present Owl Creek mountains and then turned west, following the Wind River and then over Union Pass into Jackson Hole, perhaps further west into present Idaho and then north through Yellowstone, eventually making his way back to Fort Manuel Lisa by following the Shoshone and then the Big Horn River.5 A second suggested route has Colter entering Yellowstone, traveling south through Jackson Hole and then turning east, following the Wind River to some point in the neighborhood of present-day Riverton and then north through the Big Horn Basin, following the Big Horn River the entire distance back to Fort Manuel Lisa.6
The exact route is moot. The main point of his trip was to find trading partners. He did not succeed although he did see the wonders of Yellowstone, becoming the first white American eyewitness to what became known as "Colter’s Hell.”7 Another consequence of Colter’s expedition was to demonstrate that the Spanish empire was not as close as some people initially believed.8
Paramount, however, was the notion that Colter was on an expedition motivated by economic concerns. He was not an explorer simply out mapping and describing the area such as his previous bosses, Lewis and Clark, had been. He managed to make the trip during the winter months of 1807-08, an amazing feat given the frequent inclement weather that normally plagues the area. He reported back to his colleagues at Lisa’s fort what he had seen, but none seemed conducive to further exploration because he did not observe rich fur grounds nor encounter native people interesting in developing a trade relationship. Consequently, the long-term affect of Colter’s walk came with the oral report he presented to William Clark after Colter left the territory for the last time. Clark converted Colter’s descriptions onto a map, along with routes of other explorers that would become useful to later travelers.9
Colter’s foray into the Wyoming wilds illustrates yet another point. He, like many of the mountain men who followed him, was an “expectant capitalist.”10 He anticipated gaining great wealth from the trapping and trade possibilities in the mountains, but he had no desire to make a permanent home there. Once his fortune was made, he expected to return to the St. Louis area, buy a farm or a business and settle down to the life of a comfortable gentleman. Brief stays in Wyoming were a means to economic security, nothing more. Future economic booms in Wyoming were to attract the same type of individual—men who would work in Wyoming just long enough to earn the money so that they could live comfortably “back home.”11
Numerous anonymous fur trappers worked their way across what is now Wyoming before and after Colter’s time. Some were French Canadian like the mythical “Jacques LaRamee,” the fur trapper who lent his name to numerous Wyoming places posthumously. Reportedly killed by Indians somewhere along the river that bears his name, LaRamee probably trapped in what is now southeastern Wyoming in 1820-21.12
Edward Rose, reportedly of mixed African American, Native American and white ancestry, located a rude temporary cabin in the Big Horn Basin area perhaps as early as 1809.13 Little is known of Rose’s activities in these early years, although a later party of "overland Astorians” reported meeting him near the Big Horn Mountains in the summer of 1811. Colter, LaRamee, Rose and others shared the common view that their stays in Wyoming would be only temporary.
Soon after Colter made his report to Clark, John Jacob Astor was busy raising an expedition designed to establish a trading post on the Pacific Coast. The German-born entrepreneur who already had earned a fortune in trade by importing such items as flutes from Europe, studied the Lewis and Clark reports and even sought assistance from Congress in order to mount an expedition west.14
Astor was a cautious man. Rather than relying on the unknowns of an overland route, he hedged his bets by sending a ship, the “Tonquin,” around the tip of South America. He hoped one of the two expeditions would succeed in reaching the West Coast. It turned out that, after stops along the South American coast and on the island of Hawaii, the Tonquin located the mouth of the Columbia River and, soon after, the crew set up a crude fort they called Fort Astoria.
At about the time the fort was being built, Astor’s overland party was leaving St. Louis. Led by a New Jersey-born merchant, Wilson Price Hunt, who had almost no experience outside of general merchandising, the party consisted of 60 men when it finally set out in April 1810 for Oregon. The initial plan was to follow the Lewis and Clark route as closely as possible, but when the party came to a point along the Missouri River between present-day Pierre and Mobridge, South Dakota, Hunt opted to abandon his boats and try a short cut overland to the West. The party traded for horses with the local Indians and set out in a generally straight line West in late July. By early August, the expedition had reached what is now the extreme northeast corner of Wyoming, crossed the Belle Fourche River and continued south and westward into the Powder River country. There, the extremely hot temperatures caused serious discomfort. For instance, the lack of water caused Hunt’s dog to die from heat exhaustion and thirst. Nonetheless, by late August, the Hunt party was encamped near present-day Buffalo, along the eastern edge of the Big Horn Mountains. There, the party encountered Edward Rose, but many of his actions caused suspicion and Hunt spurned his offers to serve as a guide.
After several days’ rest, the party crossed the Big Horns, probably over what is now called Powder River Pass, following Ten Sleep Creek until they reached the site of present-day Ten Sleep where they turned south and followed the No Wood River. They crossed the Owl Creek Range and then turned west, following a similar route Colter had used three years earlier. Unlike Colter, however, the Hunt party encountered the Wind River Mountains and then the Tetons, reaching them in early September when the weather was highly changeable.
After circling in several directions for several days, the Hunt party finally opted to proceed to Fort Hall, a fur company post in present-day Idaho. From there, Hunt made a tragic mistake. He opted to trade his horses for rudely constructed rafts, load the men and supplies aboard and navigate the Snake River on down to the Pacific. This early-day version of “whitewater rafting” ended in disaster for Hunt’s party. Supplies were lost, the party was separated and, after wandering through the Idaho wilderness for weeks, the Hunt party began straggling into Fort Astoria in January 1812.15
Meanwhile, the Tonquin had departed for a trading mission with Indians along the northwest coast. Following a round of trading with an Indian village on Vancouver Island, the ship was boarded by Indians who killed the entire crew, except for one sailor who had found himself ashore at the fatal time. At the same time, rumors continued to circulate that the United States and Britain were at war. Alarming to the American leadership at Fort Astoria was the news that Britain was winning.
In the summer of 1812, Robert Stuart and six other men were recruited at Fort Astoria to return east and report to Astor. Stuart, who had come to the West Coast via the Tonquin, was an unusual choice as expedition leader. Nonetheless, he ably traversed the Idaho wilderness and picked up Indian trails in what is now west central Wyoming over South Pass. Stuart and his men were the first white Americans to report using the famous pass. From there, they followed the Sweetwater River east. Near present-day Casper, they decided to spend the winter. There, at Bessemer Bend, they built a rude cabin, but Indians passing through the area caused them great concern. Consequently, by early December, the party had elected to follow the North Platte River east, finally deciding to spend the winter at a well-protected stopover near present-day Torrington.
The Stuart party had pioneered the Oregon Trail route, but had done it “backwards”—west to east rather than in the usually expected east-to-west direction. Significantly, however, the Stuart party “found” South Pass, which was to prove to be the least difficult passageway through the Rockies.16
The Hunt and Stuart expeditions also reflect the theme in Wyoming history. The state always seems to have been “a trail to somewhere else.” Neither party made any serious effort to explore the potentials of Wyoming, but like thousands of visitors along Wyoming’s present-day interstate highways, simply viewed it as a necessary obstacle to travel east or west. Later travelers were to make better use of the trail en route to homes in Oregon and Utah and the gold fields of California.
Economically, few of the early fur trappers plying their trade in Wyoming were very successful. For one thing, the markets for their furs were distant—too far except for extended annual returns with the bulky beaver pelts. By the time these early trappers had returned from “civilization” with their complement of goods for another year in the mountains, much of the prime fur-trapping season was over.
A former Missouri lead mine operator recognized the problem and, in 1824, he organized a fur trading company with a plan to make a fortune in the West. The mine operator, William Ashley, advertised for “a few enterprising young men” in the Missouri Republican newspaper and received dozens of responses, including one from a young man named Jim Bridger.17
Ashley’s well-organized expedition left Missouri in early spring, crossed present Kansas, into northeastern Colorado and then into Wyoming over the Laramie Plains, westward to the Green River. There, Ashley turned south, following the Green River (then known by other trappers as “Spanish River” probably for the fact that it eventually came out in the Spanish southwest).18
At a point near the present Wyoming-Utah state line, Ashley “cached” his trade goods, intending to travel light until he could retrieve the goods upon his return north. When the parties reunited, it was at a “rendezvous” location--the first fur trade “rendezvous.”19 While strictly speaking, it was not a true rendezvous, Ashley had come upon an idea for a trade fair in the West. Hardly unique to the Western experience, the trade fair featured an opportunity for mountain men to trade furs for goods without having to make the arduous trip to a distant trading post or east to the population centers.20 That way, the individual trapper could concentrate on trapping, relying on supplies from the annual mid-summer visits of the trade companies sponsoring the rendezvous.
Rendezvous have become mythical in modern film and literature as places for debauchery and drunkenness, knife and ax-throwing contests, and tests of skill and strength. Their most important function, the reason they were patronized, however, was economic.
Ashley set prices based on his St. Louis costs, plus a reasonable charge for transporting the supplies and a modest profit. From the beginning, trappers complained of the uneven rates of exchange. For instance, Ashley offered to purchase each beaver skin for $3 per pound. Since the “average beaver pelt” weighs approximately 1.44 pounds, a trapper could get $5 per pelt. Meanwhile, he could trade for coffee ($2 per pound), gunpowder ($2 per pound), buttons and fish hooks ($1.50 per dozen) or even heavily diluted rum ($16 per gallon).21 Trappers complained but Ashley was the “only game in town.” But in his defense, Ashley’s risks were considerable. Transporting hundreds of pounds of beaver pelts back to St. Louis required planning and a bit of good luck.22 Circulating the word in the far-flung wilderness by word of mouth among mountain men, the directions and dates of the rendezvous could lead to missing the suppliers altogether.23
In the ensuing years, Ashley sold out his interest in the rendezvous supply company, using his profits in an unsuccessful run for governor of Missouri. The successor companies soon faced competition from combines made up of fur trappers themselves who saw the profit potential in supplies compared to the risks involved in the actual trapping of beaver. Thomas Fitzpatrick, Jim Bridger and Jedediah Smith formed their own companies, sometimes as partners and other times as competitors. One year, Fitzpatrick’s company packed goods in from Santa Fe, not the more distant but easier to reach St. Louis.24
The annual rendezvous gained identities much like today’s “family reunions.” They were referred to by fur trappers and traders, not by the year they were held, but by the main events occurring at them. For instance, the 1827 rendezvous featured the first wheeled vehicle pulled over South Pass, a cannon mounted on a two-wheeled cart pulled by horses as part of William Sublette’s company. The feat demonstrated to doubters that South Pass could be crossed by wheeled vehicles, prompting later West Coast-bound travelers to use the trans-Wyoming route. Capt. B. L. E. Bonneville took wagons over in 1836.
Many of the annual rendezvous were held in what is now Wyoming, most along the Upper Green River in the neighborhood of present-day Pinedale.25 At the 1835 rendezvous along the Green, Jim Bridger asked traveling doctor and missionary Marcus Whitman to remove an arrow point from his back. Bridger had suffered the wound two years earlier in a skirmish with the Bannacks. Without the use of anesthesia, Whitman removed the offending arrow point, thus completing the first surgical operation in Wyoming history. Whitman proceeded on to Oregon Territory where he established a mission. The next year, after returning to the East Coast via sailing ship around the tip of South America, the missionary returned west, this time accompanied by his new bride, Narcissa. She and the wife of another missionary, Eliza Spaulding, became the first white American women to travel across Wyoming.26
The rendezvous captured the attention of local Native Americans who participated in the lively trade and contests at the brief mid-summer carnivals. One such event, the 1837 rendezvous, featured the presence of Sir William Drummond Stewart, a Scottish nobleman who had made a similar visit three years earlier by paying the supply company to transport him to the site. (He became Wyoming’s first “dude” as a result). This time, Stewart brought with him a Baltimore artist, Alfred Jacob Miller. In the days before cameras, Stewart wanted a permanent record of the colorful rendezvous. From the sketches Miller made that year, he was able to paint dozens of canvases featuring rendezvous scenes. They became the first Euro-American produced visual records of what is now Wyoming.27 Stewart also brought with him a white-plumed steel helmet of a British regiment, which he presented, to Jim Bridger. Artist Miller painted the mountain man riding about displaying the headgear to Indians and other trappers.28
But the rendezvous, dependent for success on market conditions, soon passed from the scene. The price of beaver pelts dropped rapidly in the late 1830s when European fashions in men’s hats turned from beaver to felt and other materials. With the price drop came declining interest in trapping. Besides, in some places in Wyoming, beaver were reportedly “trapped out” because of overzealous pressures on the natural resource. The inevitable “bust” following the “boom” had set in. Like the cycles in the cattle industry, oil and coal in later decades, the wild fluctuations in economic fortunes shattered dreams of quick and easy wealth.
It was not simply the “boom-bust” cycle that influenced the end of the rendezvous system, however. By the late 1820s, traders planned permanent points for fur bartering and sales of supplies. Mountain men in Wyoming for the first time had the luxury of year-round trading at the trading posts set up closer to the fur trapping grounds. In 1828, a Portuguese trader named Antonio Montero (or “Mateo”) established a post made of cottonwood logs in the Powder River Basin near present Kaycee. Evidently, the location proved impractical and unprofitable. Montero closed the post and moved on, allowing the log structure to fall apart and rot away.29
Another post was far more permanent. In 1834, William Sublette and his partner, Robert Campbell, were racing the Boston-based merchant Nathaniel Wyeth, to the Green River rendezvous. Sublette stopped long enough at the confluence of the Laramie River and the North Platte to set up a trading post where he could cache some supplies for later trading. He named the post "Fort William” and, later, the name was changed to “Fort John on the Laramie” to distinguish it from another Fort John. Soon, the lengthy title was shortened to “Fort Laramie.” It was the first permanent white American settlement in Wyoming, a product of the economic competition in the fur trade.30
The collapse of the fur trade market caused mountain men either to return east and seek employment in more traditional modes or to turn to other endeavors in the West. Many of them, like Jim Bridger and Joseph Walker, used the knowledge they had gained about the territory as a means of guiding travelers west. As some historians have asserted, had not the fur trade collapsed, westward travelers would not have had competent guides across the Rockies. At the same time, many of these mountain men set up supply stations for the convenience of travelers.
To profit from the “trails to somewhere else,” men like Bridger and his partner Louis Vasquez (born in St. Louis, descended from a pioneer Spanish family), built forts designed to attract travelers as much as to entice area Indians and trappers to the trade.31 Fort Bridger, built in 1841-42, was to become a key supply point on the trail west to California and Oregon and, in the late 1850s, a point of controversy between the Mormons in Utah and the United States government.32
For his part, mountain man Walker led a party of Midwest farmers west to the Oregon country in 1841. They were the first of an estimated 300,000 travelers to use the trail west across Wyoming toward what they considered better opportunities on the West Coast.
Wyoming was about to become even more of a “trail to somewhere else.” The nation was moving west but not to Wyoming. The total population of emigrants traversing Wyoming from 1841-1860 exceeded the census counts for the state taken at every decennial until 1960.
The fur trade and the migration that followed introduce several of the organizing concepts in Wyoming history. Early on, the area has been “a trail to somewhere else.” At the same time, the federal government’s influence, both from legislation and from appropriations, has been substantial. Large enterprises, organized and controlled from outside Wyoming’s borders, have dominated the economic life of Wyoming from long before statehood. These industries largely have been natural resource based and, consequently, highly susceptible to “boom and bust” cycles. The water and the land attracted those who wished to exploit the resources, but also to those willing to make a permanent commitment to Wyoming. Among both groups, there were those who valued wilderness and its non-economic contributions to human existence. The trappers included African-Americans, French Canadians, farm boys from Kentucky, lead miners from Missouri and, of course, Native Americans. From the beginning, Wyoming was a diverse society containing competing and complementary cultures.
At the beginning of the new millennium, Wyomingites of diverse cultures face similar questions of federal-state-private relationships. They debate whether or not to preserve wilderness. They consider how to allocate water, what to do about vast open spaces. Through it all, the rutted Oregon Trail and the other “trails to somewhere else” have become interstate highways and airfields where planes seem bound from Wyoming to a handful of out-of-state “hub” airports. High above the empty plains and shimmering mountains, vapor trails, shine red in the sunset sky marking in less permanent traces than what wagons and cars left behind. In the place still pocked by Oregon Trail ruts and crossed by straight-line interstates, modern airplanes don’t even bother to touch down within its borders.
1An excellent recent analysis of Lewis and Clark’s relationship with native peoples may be found in James Ronda, Lewis and Clark Among the Indians. (University of Nebraska Press, 1991). The popular biography of Lewis is Stephen Ambrose. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996).
2The best biographical information on Colter may be found in LeRoy Hafen, (ed.), Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West. (10 vols., Glendale, Calif: Arthur H. Clark, 1965-72), but see also Burton Harris, John Colter, His Years in the Rockies. (New York: Scribners, 1952). See also, W. J. Ghent, “Sketch of John Colter,” Annals of Wyoming 10 (July 1938), 111. The mountain men as “mappers: of the West is the subject of a well-written and carefully documented book by Robert M. Utley, A Life Wild and Perilous: Mountain Men and the Paths to the Pacific. (New York: Henry Holt, 1997).
3See, for instance, Harris’ description of the excursion, op. cit. For debates over the validity of the so-called “Colter stone,” see Annals of Wyoming 38 (Spring 1942).
4Marie Erwin, Wyoming Historical Blue Book. (Cheyenne: Wyoming State Archives and Historical Department, 1943).
5See, for instance, H. M. Chittenden, op. cit.; and Aubrey Haines, The Yellowstone Story. (Yellowstone Museum Association, 1979).
6This is the route Hill favored, op. cit.
7Most historians believe the term “Colter’s Hell” actually was first applied to the area just west of Cody along the Shoshone River where Colter first encountered hot springs and geysers. The geysers in the area are now extinct, but many of the hot springs still flow from the banks of the Shoshone River, including DeMaris Springs, the site local authorities such as Bob Edgar favor as the spot where Colter encountered the Shoshone.
8For descriptions of early mapping, see William Goetzmann, Exploration and Empire. (New York: Knopf, 1966), but see also, Utley, op. cit.
9The importance of federal financing of the Lewis and Clark expedition cannot be overemphasized. In essence, it was this federal “research seed money” that made western exploration attractive. John Colter, when he first came West, could be described as a “federal employee,” given that he was part of the federally financed project supported through the efforts of President Thomas Jefferson. For discussion of the maps, see John L. Allen, Passage through the Garden: Lewis and Clark and the Image of the American Northwest. (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1975), 378-79.
10The term is applied by many historians of the fur trade, including William H. Goetzmann, “The Mountain Man as Jacksonian Man,” American Quarterly 15 (Fall, 1963), 402-415. See also Fred Gowens. Rocky Mountain Rendezvous. (Provo: BYU Press, 1976). Gowens, a professor at Brigham Young University, is the recognized authority on the rendezvous.
11 For evidence of this trend, the author consulted many of the biographies in LeRoy R. Hafen, The Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West. 10 vols. (Glendale, Calif.: Arthur H. Clark, 1965-72).
12For a report on the investigation of the LaRamee “myth” and the probability that even his first name may be in error, see John D. McDermott, “In Search of Jacques LaRamee: A Study in Frustration,” Annals of Wyoming 36 (October, 1964, 169-174.
13See Erwin, op. cit.
14Much of what is known about the travels of the “overland Astorians” comes from a book commissioned by Astor many years later as an official history of his company. Washington Irving, Fort Astoria. (New York, 1837). For a carefully documented recent analysis of the Hunt expedition, see James Ronda, Astoria and Empire. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990).
15Hunt eventually returned to St. Louis where he became postmaster and served in that capacity for 18 years. See Ronda, ibid.
16It can not be overemphasized that most trails across Wyoming had been known and used by Native peoples. Many of the routes probably began as game trails for buffalo, antelope and other indigenous animals.
17Missouri Republican, March 22, 1822.
18Sheridan County resident Glenn Sweem reported finding part of a 16th century Spanish sword near Dayton, Wyoming, in the early 1960s. The author has viewed the item and heard the arguments made by many local historians that the presence of such artifacts proves that Spaniards had traveled in Wyoming much earlier than French-Canadian fur trappers. The author, however, leans toward the view taken by other historians that the items likely made their way into Wyoming via the active Native American trade networks.
19Gowens, Rocky Mountain Rendezvous, op. cit.
20Similar types of “trade fairs” were used throughout Europe in the Middle Ages. Thanks to my colleague Dr. Kris Utterback for bringing this comparison to my attention.
21Figures cited are from Gowens, op. cit.
22After the 1825 rendezvous, Ashley transported the furs by pack train to the Big Horn River and then loaded them aboard crudely constructed rafts for transport down the Missouri River system back to St. Louis. See Richard M. Clokey, William H. Ashley: Enterprise and Politics in the Trans-Mississippi West. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980), for an account of the trip and a sound biography of Ashley.
23For instance, there was no rendezvous in 1838 because two separate sites apparently had been determined but communication breakdowns led to confusion between traders and trappers as to the exact dates and places. For a good account of the rendezvous period, see Dale L. Morgan, Jedediah Smith and the Opening of the West. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953).
24The rendezvous itself proved to be a handy forum for organizing, disbanding and reconfiguring trading partnerships and companies. For a history of the various companies, see Hiram M. Chittenden, A History of the American Fur Trade of the Far West. 2 vols. (Stanford, Calif.: Academic Reprints, 1954).
25See Gowens, end papers, for exact locations of the rendezvous sites in Wyoming, Utah and Idaho.
26For a well-documented description of the travels of the two women and others who followed, see Clifford M. Drury, First White Women over the Rockies: Diaries, Letters, and Biographical Sketches of the Six Women of the Oregon Mission Who Made the Overland Journey in 1836 and 1838. 2 vols. Glendale, Calif.: Arthur Clark, 1963).
27Many of Miller’s paintings were executed while the artist lived at Stewart’s Murthley Castle in Scotland. In the 1980s, University of Wyoming journalism professor Robert Warner effectuated the receipt of a half dozen Miller paintings by the University’s American Heritage Center. The paintings are now on permanent display in the loge of the building. For descriptions of the paintings, see Marvin C. Ross, ed. The West of Alfred Jacob Miller. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968); and Robert Warner, The Fort Laramie of Alfred Jacob Miller. (Laramie: University of Wyoming Publications, 1979).
28Mae Reed Porter and Odessa Davenport. Scotsmen in Buckskin: Sir William Drummond Stewart and the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade. (New York: Hastings House, 1963), 150-151; Ross, op.cit., 159.
29The site is noted in many Wyoming guidebooks, including Mark Junge, ed. Guide to Wyoming Historic Sites. (Cheyenne: Wyoming Recreation Commission, 1977).
30 Leroy R. Hafen and Francis M. Young. Fort Laramie and the Pageant of the West, 1834-1890. (Glendale: Arthur H. Clark, 1938).
31 Many historians believe Bridger was illiterate. Consequently, Vasquez handled the business records of the jointly run enterprise. Bridger blazed the trail for Captain H. H. Stansbury in the fall of 1850 that would become the transcontinental railroad route across southern Wyoming and the routes of Highway 30 and Interstate 80. For a brief description of this work, see Utley, op.cit., 268-271.
32 For details concerning the controversy, see Robert Ellison. Fort Bridger: Its Place in History. (Cheyenne: Wyoming State Historical Dept., reprint, 1980).