The map was in his mind: Jim Bridger's remarkable journey through the American West.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Good morning and welcome to let's Talk Wyoming.
I'm Mark Hamilton, your host.
Today.
We'll be taking a look atweather and a little bit of
sports and some other news herein the state of Wyoming and
finally, in our history section,we'll be talking about Jim
Bridger and a map in his mind.
Thanks for joining us and wehope you enjoy the show.

(01:01):
Taking a look at Wyoming weatherhere on the 25th day of March
when has the month of March gone?
I really can't figure that out.
It just seemed like we were inFebruary and now we are looking
at April right around the corner.
Here in High Springs County,weather's been mostly cold, cool
.
We've had some snows and alittle bit more of wet snow and

(01:26):
a little bit of wet snow, a lotof wind, a lot of wind over the
weekend.
Now, here today on the 25th, onTuesday, we're at 65 degrees
plus.
Looks like we're going to havea couple more days of this warm
weather, just out of theordinary At 65, it's hot and
that looks like we're going tohave a little bit of cool and

(01:48):
rain on the weekend.
And who knows what April isgoing to bring.
But we've had just up and downweather, a lot of wind getting
ready to head into April andbefore we know it that's going
to be some green grass and I sawsome poking out here and there.
When it starts to warm up we'regoing to start having all those
summer chores going on here inthe state of Wyoming In sports.

(02:12):
I just want to put a quick closeon our sports for the year.
I always talk about sports.
The state high schoolbasketball tournaments just
concluded.
The big story here in HotSprings County was our
Thermopolis Bobcat boys in the2A.
Last year they'd been in the 3Abut they moved down to 2A due

(02:34):
to enrollment numbers and theywent from one of the smaller 3A
schools to one of the twolargest 2A schools.
But long story short, the boyswon the state title First time
since 2004,.
They won Just a note on thatthey had won back-to-back
grounds there in those years Upto 2004,.

(02:58):
They won.
The previous year also, thatwas in 3A with that group, and
then the third year when theywere trying for the three-peat
they ended up in second place.
So right now the boys are kindof taking a little bit of a
break, but they're alreadytalking.
They lost a couple of seniorsand I don't see any reason why

(03:20):
they shouldn't contend for thestate title next year.
Most of that talent is comingback, so we'll see if the Bobcat
boys can go back to back Ourgirls team.
They finished third in the stateand that's a good result for
them.
They had a great season and in3A, lovell and Douglas both won.
On the boys side Lovell wonLovell Bulldogs and on the girls

(03:44):
side, douglas won.
And it's amazing story thatdouglas lady bearcats they are
had won four straight and theywould have won in 2020.
But covid derailed that whenthey shut down the state
tournament that year or elsethey would have had a five feet
and they are just a machine.

(04:04):
In Douglas.
They lost their coach this year.
He took a job up at theNorthwest Community College
girls team kind of a late hirefor him up there and he went up
and so one of the players thathad played there from years
before and won state titles.
He came back and was the headcoach and they ended up beating

(04:27):
a really good Cody team in agame that went down to the wire
and a foul on a three-point playor a three-point shot, I should
say just before the buzzer.
Douglas is all everything, allstate, all everything.
Top scorer here in the state.
Everything, all state, alleverything.
Top scorer here in the state.
Lauren Olson went to the lineand made two of three free

(04:47):
throws.
Ended up that Douglas did getthat crown.
And that's what happened to theCody boys.
They were kind of snake bit.
They were playing level and onepoint game late and then they
had an issue with a substitution.
They ended up with six playerson the floor.
Somebody forgot to go out andas a coach I've always make sure
that we check in and check out.

(05:09):
But in the heat of the battlesometimes things happen with
kids.
So Lovell it was a technicalfoul.
Lovell got to shoot two freethrows and then additional free
throws and then got the ballback and ultimately they won
that game.
So 2A, 3a, 1a the previous timeand the 4A are all in the books.

(05:31):
Now we're getting into thatspringtime year with our sports
soccer track here in Hot SpringsCounty.
Most of the 1A, 2a just havetrack.
The larger schools have thesoccer also and some of the
schools now are getting intosoftball.
So again, the winter season isover.

(05:53):
It just comes and goes so fast.
But congratulations to allthose players and all the kids
that went out for sports ineverything in wrestling and all
the other sports.
It takes a lot of effort, ittakes a lot of time and thank
you to all the coaches.

(06:14):
Other people that are unsungheroes in the state of Wyoming
are the activity drivers thatdrive those yellow school buses
across the state of Wyoming.
They're always driving atuptune times.
They have to go early in themorning, late at night.
They're coming back after thosekids get done and they've been
sitting around.
They have to drive that busback and got a lot of pressure
on them with that many kids onthat bus.
But they always get the teamsthrough a lot of times in some

(06:35):
bad weather.
So hats off to all the peoplethat are involved, especially
those activity drivers and allthe people that are working at
these events helping support theathletics, and also our
officials.
There's always that push formore officials.
Officials take a lot of grief.
We never miss a call from thestands, even though those refs

(06:57):
miss a lot on the floor.
So great ending the season withspring right around the corner.
On the college side, the WyomingCowgirls ended up losing in the
semifinals of the Mountain Westtournament.
They went overtime against SanDiego State and that was an
upset-prone tournament.

(07:17):
Nevada UNLV, I should say.
They got beat in the semifinalsand so did the Cowgirls.
They lost in overtime.
So the Cowgirls, they lost inovertime.
So the Cowgirls got a bid forthe first round of the NIT.
They got a host of the game inLaramie, but a good Texas Tech
Lady Raider team came in andsoundly beat the Cowgirls, so
their season is over.

(07:38):
So all the sports is done.
As we get into that time of year, legislature concluded, with a
lot of activity going on in thestate, We've been hit here
recently on the political sidewith Harriet Hageman, our
congresswoman.
She was doing town halls, ofcourse.
She did one in Douglas andLaramie and in Wheatland.

(08:01):
That I saw.
And the one in Douglas excuseme, douglas, I have on my mind
the one in Jackson, they hadquite a few people bust in and
also at Laramie it got prettyrowdy and just a it didn't go
very well with a lot of peoplecoming in from Colorado and such

(08:23):
.
And then I did see, before shewent to Wheatland there was an
ad by the Wyoming DemocraticParty telling people about her
having this event, and so it's atrend that's going on across
the country with the peopleshowing up, these agitators
showing up at these events, andthen when you see the posts on
Facebook, you see a lot of them.

(08:45):
The posts are from bots.
They don't have any type ofhistory.
They've always got a Ukraineflag and the same comments.
So kind of divisive time.
And this fiasco with the Teslas,with these crazy people.
I mean that Crazy people.

(09:07):
They need to go to jail and Ihope that the current
administration, that the lawenforcement attorney general, us
attorney general this is an actof terrorism what they're doing
to Tesla and I don't know.
We've gotten to the point wherewe are lost our way as human
beings when we're acting likethe way we are.

(09:29):
So I don't know, I think Imight buy a Tesla if it keeps
going like this.
With the attack, it's prettyamazing that the Democrats were
the ones that were reallypushing electric cars.
Everybody should drive anelectric car.
Now they're getting rid oftheir electric cars.
Don't really like them, want toburn them down or destroy them.

(09:50):
It just never ceases to amazeme the stupidity of people in
our world today.
And one final note, kind ofinteresting A year and a half
ago we had a young lady gomissing over in Washakie County.
It was on a Sunday night, if Iremember right.
She was out by the airport ifanybody knows where the airport

(10:12):
is in Worland outside of Worlandout by the golf course.
Girl was out there.
Car broke down, stuff happenedand they never did find this
young lady.
They searched, had search teamsand such out.
Then there was a reportyesterday that didn't say where
a remote part of Washakie Countythat they found some human

(10:35):
remains.
Easy for you to say, and soit's going to be interesting to
see they're going to take and doan analysis and see if they
have any type of records,anything they can find, and
whether that might be this younglady.
So just another part of themystery of what happened to her,
because she just disappearedinto thin air.

(10:56):
Just a quick update today here,on the 27th day of March.
I talked just previously on themissing young lady in Washakie
County and about the game wardenfinding some remains.
They have been identified thatthey are Breanna Mitchell, the

(11:17):
girl that had been missing backin July of 23.
I guess it gives a littleclosure for the family.
They are in the process ofdetermining if there was any
type of foul play, but she wasfound about a mile north of
where the car broke down.
And I remember and I have tolook at the reports that she did

(11:39):
make a report to her boyfriendat 5 am that morning that her
car broke down and when he wentout to look for her he couldn't
find her.
So it was in some pretty rougharea but about a mile from where
her car broke down.
So thoughts and prayers go outto her family but they do have a
little bit of closure withfinding her, with finding her In

(12:03):
our history section.
Today we want to look at a storyfrom wildhistoryorg, a map of
the West in his head.
Jim Bridger Guide to Plains andMountains.
This is by James A Lau and theWyoming State Historical
Preservation Office.
Jim Bridger already had morethan 30 years experience in the

(12:24):
West as a trapper, mountain manand Indian fighter before he
became the premier guide for theUS Army in the mid-1850s.
In 1822, at 17, bridgerenlisted in the Ashley Henry
Expedition, sent from St Louisto trap beaver in the Rocky
Mountains.
He worked first as an employeeand later became a partner in

(12:46):
the famous Rocky Mountain FurCompany.
He mastered wilderness lore andaccumulated an astonishing
mental map of western NorthAmerica when nearly all of it
was still unsettled by whites.
It was this geographicalknowledge that aided many US
Army topographical expeditionsto successfully complete
assignments.
Bridger provided for memoryaccurate maps of the Rocky

(13:09):
Mountains to US militarycommanders leading exploratory
expeditions.
He possessed an intimateknowledge of western geography
and natural transportationroutes.
Bridger was also well knownamong the American Indian tribes
of the Rockies, especially theShoshone.
He was a personal friend ofShoshone chief Washakie and was

(13:30):
married three times to nativewomen a Flathead, a Ute and a
Shoshone.
As a result of his experience,pritchard played an integral
role in the initial geographicaldiscoveries in the West, which
in turn helped foster earlyEuro-American immigration and
settlement.
Pritchard's experience had fewlimits.

(13:51):
He quit the dying fur trade in1842 and in 1843, where his
partner Luis Vazquez establisheda trading post along the Black
Fork of the Green River in whatis now Wyoming and in what then
was still a corner of Mexico.
At the time, bridger recognizedthat the overnight migration to

(14:11):
Oregon was a sign of changingsettlement patterns and that
Fort Bridger could not help butbecome a profitable economic
concern.
For 15 years the post was a keysupply point for the
Oregon-Mormon-California Trail,immigrants needing provisions,
livestock and repair of theirwagons.
The Stansberry Expedition tothe Great Salt Lake in 1849-1850

(14:36):
was the first federally fundedgovernment exploration guided by
Bridger.
It was fully designed toacquire geographical and
geological data from the westthat would help facilitate a
future route for atranscontinental railroad and
telegraph and to locate coaldeposits.
On the return, bridger guidedthe Stansbury party east along

(14:57):
ways that later became familiaras the Overland Trail and the
Union Pacific Railroad Routes.
Bridger's unequaled knowledge ofthe northern Rocky Mountain
region and the upper MissouriRiver Basin aided two
expeditions searching fortransportation routes between
1856 and 1860.
He served as a guide forLieutenant Governor Kay Warren's

(15:21):
1856 expedition to recoiter theregion surrounding the Black
Hills and the Yellowstone River.
He led Warren's party from FortUnion at the mouth of the
Yellowstone on the Missouri,near the present Montana-North
Dakota border, southwest up theYellowstone to the mouth of the
Powder River.
Warren's explorations revealeda great deal of geological

(15:44):
information was still lacking toEuro-Americans.
In his report on the Dakotaregion, warren recommended
further reconnaissance of theUpper Yellowstone and Powder
River Country regions that werestill classified as terra
incognita.
As a result, captain WilliamReynolds was ordered to explore
the region in 1859.

(16:05):
Bridger was the logical choiceto guide this important
expedition as well when the Armyresumed operations against the
Sioux after the Civil War, theWarren and Reynolds reports
formed the only existing body ofinformation pertaining to the
Dakota-Wyoming region.
Whenever the mission wasimportant, the government's
choice was inevitably the sameJim Bridger.

(16:25):
Along with other expeditions,he spent part of his year of
1857 guiding Colonel AlbertSidney Johnston, who was sent
with 2,500 troops to escort thenew federal governor and restore
the presence of the USgovernment in the Utah Territory
during the bloodless UtahMormon War.

(16:45):
Bridger served in 1861 as aguide for an expatriate party
under the command of Captain E LBertoud, searching for a route
through the Colorado Rockies.
In 1862, he served underColonel William Collins and his
son, lieutenant Casper Collins,on an expedition west up the

(17:06):
Sweetwater, over South Pass,around the west end of the Wind
River Mountains and back eastover Union Pass.
Bridger achieved the rank ofmajor and was the chief guide,
at $10 a day, assigned to FortLaramie through the remainder of
1860 until his retirement latein 1868.
In 1864, however, he spent theseason guiding immigrant trains

(17:31):
to the Montana territories.
After obtaining a leave ofabsence from the fort on April
30th, on May 20th he beganguiding his first train of
immigrants along the BridgerTrail through the Bighorn Basin
to the Montana Goldfields nearVirginia City.
He led a second party along thetrail.
In the fall Cheyenne and LakotaSioux.
Opposition to immigration andmilitary activity along the

(17:54):
Bozeman Trail intensified andBridger's services as guide were
needed more than ever.
He guided the lead column ofthe US Army's Powder River
Expedition under the command ofGeneral Patrick E Connor, which
was ordered into the PowderRiver Basin to find and punish
the Lakota and their allies.
The campaign failed.
In an attempt to curtail Indianaggression along the Bozeman

(18:15):
Trail, bridger served his lastcommission in 1868 on the
signing of the Fort LaramieTreaty which closed the Bozeman
Trail and the forts built in avein to defend it.
He guided the Army to thePowder River Basin to remove the
properties from the forts.
When he returned he was paidand discharged from the Army at
Fort DA Russell near Cheyenne.

(18:37):
He retired to his farm inWestport near Kansas City,
missouri, and died on July 17,1881, at the age of 77.
General Greenville M Dodge,serving in the Civil War and
later commander of theDepartment of the Missouri,
before going to work in 1866 asthe chief engineer of the Union

(19:00):
Pacific Railroad, bridger guidedDodge on railroad surveys and
Indian campaigns.
Unquestionably Bridger's claimsto remembrance.
Dodge wrote 40 years later restupon the extraordinary part he
bore in the explorations of theWest.
As a guide he was without equaland this is the testimony of

(19:20):
everyone who ever knew him.
He was born a topographer.
The whole West was mapped outin his mind and such was his
instinctive sense of localityand direction that it used to be
said of him that he could smellhis way where he could not see
it.
He was a complete master ofplanes and woodcraft, equal to

(19:41):
any emergency, full of resourcesto overcome any obstacles, and
I came to learn gradually how itwas, for that once such man
could live without food, exceptwhat the country afforded him in
that wild region.
Bridger was not an educated man.
Still, any country that hadever seen him would fully and

(20:02):
intelligently describe and hewould make a very correct
estimate of the countrysurrounding it.
He could take a map of anycountry he had ever traveled
over, mark out its streams andmountains and the obstacles
correctly, so that there was notrouble in following it and
fully understanding it.
He thoroughly understood theIndian character and their

(20:23):
superstitions.
As a guide.
I do not think he had equalsupon the plains In 1904, on the
100th anniversary of Bridger'sbirth, dodge had Bridger's
remains reinterred at a selectspot in the Mount Washington
Cemetery in Independence,missouri, with a seven-foot
monument depicting Bridger'sprincipal achievements,

(20:46):
celebrated as a hunter, trapper,fur trader and guide, he
discovered Great Salt Lake in1824, the South Pass in 1823,
visited Yellowstone Lake andgeysers in 1830,.
He founded Fort Bridger in1843,.
He opened the Overland Route byBridger's Pass to the Great

(21:07):
Salt Lake.
He was a guide for the USexploring expeditions, albert
Sidney Johnson's army in 1857,and GM Dodge in the UP Survey
and the Indian campaigns of 1865to 1866.
Quite a legend, jim Bridger,and it's amazing his abilities.

(21:28):
And now we need our phones andGoogle Maps to try to figure out
where we are.
We really just needed JimBridger.
Thanks for joining us today andwe hope you enjoy our podcast.
As per the code of the West, weride for the brand and we ride
for Wyoming.
We'll be right back.

(22:03):
Come on, come on, come on.

(22:52):
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