WEST YELL - Bozeman Trail

From the halls of our rustic, (some would say 'dilapidated,) office in beautiful downtown West Yellowstone comes a phoenix. 

...It happened just as reported. "We saw it all and there was just no escaping." What would Grandpa Do? ...
     Although called the Bozeman Trail, the route followed by John Bozeman and John Jacobs was really a long-used travel corridor.  Indians had followed the north-south trails through Powder River country since prehistoric times, and it was familiar to the early Nineteenth Century explorers, trappers and traders.  Captain William Raynolds of the Army Corps of Topographic Engineers led an expedition that covered much of the later Bozeman Trail in 1859-1860, mapping if not naming many of the landmarks and geographic features that would become familiar to travelers during the next decade.  Thus, by the time Bozeman and Jacobs made their first explorations south from the gold fields to the Oregon-California Trail on the North Platte River, they were entering well-traveled territory.   Their greatest contribution would be establishing a route useable by wagons, and promoting travel on it.
Posted by Admin | 02-29-08 | No Comments

What Insights & Innuendos ?

The Bozeman Trail began as a gold-rush trail--a shortcut from the main trail on the North Platte River to the gold fields of Montana.x-15The several routes of the Trail overlaid earlier Indian, trader and exploration routes in Wyoming and Montana. While only about 3,500 emigrants traversed the trail in 1864-66, its most significant consequence was that it cut through the Powder River Basin, the last and best hunting grounds of the Northern Plains Indians, and led to military occupation of the region and ultimately resulted in the Indian wars on the Northern Plains. After emigrant use ceased, the Trail served as a military road to the forts until it was abandoned in 1868 following the Fort Laramie Treaty. It was used again in 1876 by the forces of General George C. Crook, and shortly after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the route was opened and used by settlers.

Posted by Admin | 02-29-08 | No Comments