01Summary
A trading post built in 1843 by mountain man Jim Bridger and his partner Louis Vasquez. Its blacksmith shop was a welcome sight, and here the trails to Oregon and to the Salt Lake Valley went separate ways.
02History
Jim Bridger and Louis Vasquez built their post in 1843 on Blacks Fork of the Green River, in what is now southwestern Wyoming, to trade with Native people and with the emigrants. In December 1843 Bridger wrote that he had built a small fort with a blacksmith shop and a supply of iron on the emigrants' road.
It was only a few log cabins, and not everyone was impressed. In 1846 Edwin Bryant called the buildings 'two or three miserable log-cabins, rudely constructed, and bearing but a faint resemblance to habitable houses.'
Oregon- and California-bound trains turned northwest here toward the Bear River and Fort Hall, although many later trains skipped the fort by taking the Sublette Cutoff. In 1846 the Donner Party turned southwest onto the new Hastings Cutoff, and from 1847 Mormon companies followed that road through the Wasatch Mountains to the Salt Lake Valley.
Tension grew between Bridger and the Mormon settlers. In 1853 Mormon militia came to the fort and Bridger fled, and in 1855 he agreed to sell. During the Utah War of 1857 Mormon militia burned the fort ahead of the U.S. Army. The Army rebuilt it in 1858 and kept it as a post, with one break, until 1890.
03Today
Fort Bridger State Historic Site has a replica of Bridger's trading post, restored buildings from the Army years and a museum in an old infantry barracks. A mountain-man rendezvous is held there every Labor Day weekend.
04People connected here
05Stops nearby
The Oregon Trail ran about 2,170 miles from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City. The stops just before and after this one are below. You can also find Fort Bridger on the interactive map.