Fort Bridger: Every Trail West Passed Through Here

There are a handful of places in the American West that virtually every major migration route passed through, and Fort Bridger is one of them. The Oregon Trail, the California Trail, the Mormon Pioneer Trail, the Pony Express Route, the Overland Stage Line, the Transcontinental Railroad, and eventually the Lincoln Highway, all of them converged on this small valley in the Black's Fork of the Green River. If you were moving west in the nineteenth century, there was a good chance you stopped here.

Jim Bridger and his partner Louis Vasquez established the trading post in eighteen forty-two, opening for business the following year. Bridger was already the most famous mountain man in the West, a trapper, guide, and scout who had explored more of the uncharted country than almost any living person. His fort was a simple affair at first: a supply stop where emigrants could buy horses, food, and equipment at prices that earned the post a reputation for highway robbery. The Mormon Pioneer Company, passing through in eighteen forty-seven under Brigham Young, complained loudly about the costs and eventually built their own fort nearby.

The relationship between Bridger and the Mormons curdled quickly. In August of eighteen fifty-three, a Utah territorial militia arrived at the fort. Bridger escaped minutes before they reached him, warned just in time. The Mormons took control of the fort and operated it until eighteen fifty-seven, when they burned it to the ground as the United States Army approached during the so-called Utah War. The army rebuilt it the following year and garrisoned it until eighteen ninety.

Today Fort Bridger is a Wyoming state historic site. The interpretive program covers all five eras of occupation: the mountain men, the Mormons, the military, a roadside motel era in the twentieth century, and finally the museum. Walking the grounds, you are standing on a place where the entire westward movement of the United States converged for fifty years.