NARRATIVE: Stories of a wild and wonderful country were brought back down the Missouri River in the early 1800’s along with bales of beaver pelts and other furs worth near their weight in gold. Grizzled, greasy mountain men like Jim Bridger, James Clyman, Jedediah Smith, Hugh Glass and Thomas Fitzpatrick spoke of a fortune in furs there for the taking where the wild prairies full of big shaggy buffalo butted up against spectacular rugged snow-capped mountains.

The fur trading era was a brief and dramatic episode in the pageant of the Old West. It promised European men a foothold in treacherous Indian country and, for those brave and lucky enough, blazed the trail for those who would follow. The mountain men would make “bull boats” out of buffalo hides stretched around crude tree branch frames to haul the hard caught furs down the Missouri.

Yankee enterprise was quick to respond to the prospect of a profit. Expeditions started up the Missouri to establish company trading posts in territory that had yet to be mapped in any significant detail and where real sovereignty still belonged to Native Americans. Once the outposts were operating, trappers would no longer have to make the long journey back to St. Louis to sell their furs and obtain provisions. An even greater commercial potential existed if native tribes could be induced to trade.