Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-05-07
~ Free Tfappers Explored Every Part of the Far West and Bazed the Trails
- Over Which Gold Seekers and Government Explorers Travelled in Mater Years

great trails westward from the
Mississippi were Travelled by
continuous caravans carrying
fortune seekers who soon add
ed their quota Of twenty thous-
and to CALIFORNIA; new popu-
lation, the great stretches OF
the "far west" through which
the argonauts journeyed were
to the nation at large an unex-
plored wilderness. And yet a
score of years before that time
every feature Of western geo.
graphy had been discovered,
every mountain range visited,
every stream of consequence
followed to it's source and the
routes of travel over which the
ox-teams plodded had been es-
tablished by white men whose
names, for the most part, have
been forgotten and whose
bones lie in unmarked graves
along the great water course OF
the west or in lonely mountain
gulches.
TIL names of La Verendrye, Lewis
and Clark, Pike and a dozen others
stand out in the history OF western
exploration because they kept records
&c Aho;v trara1c onH discoveries. and
these have become a part of the ma
TONS written history. The names OF
hundreds of other explorers as daring,
as ~resolute and as resourcefuL who
made equally important discoveries, are
buried in oblivion. These were the
western mountain men-roylng and
solitary trappers-a unique type of
Americans bred of the fur trade who's
kind has disappeared. They live in
history only vaguely and in the mass.
but their influence in the development
of the western United States was very
great.
Free Trapper an Errant Knight
American literature contains uumer-
Gus stories of the exploits of the free
trappers, obtained mostly at second
hand, but these narratives do not give
an intimate account of their character,
appearance, viewpoint, speech or man
ner of life. This is unfortunate, for
these errant adventurers lived In a
field of romance unexcelled among the
picturesque phases of the story of this
continent. The typical free trapper,
clad in tanned skins like an Indian,
rode forth to encounter whatever fresh
adventure each day held. Savage foes,
man and beast, he met in combat like
the knights of Arthur's day, asking no
quarter and giving lone. Many veter-
ans among them, such as Bridger, Kit
Carson, Bill Williams and others, had
mapped in their minds eyes every i'm
portant detail Of the expanse of west
ern mountain and plains country from
the Mexican line to the Red River of
the North. Between 1880 and 1910,
if is said. the geography of the far
vest was better understood by these
rovers than it has at any time since
until comparatively recently.
Brigham Young chose the valley of
the Great Salt Lake, discovered by
Bridger, upon information obtained
from trappers. The United States
troops in the west, from the time of
the Mexican wars until the northwest
Indian wars ended, marched and rode
under the guidance Of mountain men
who knew every trail and pass. When
American soldiers halted before Santa
Fe they found a population made
friendly to the United States by an
nual intercourse with Rocky mountain
trappers. When government engineer
ing and surveying parties began the
work of exploring and mapping the
west, they were invariably guided by
veterans who made their paths easy.
Free trappers formed a class by
themselves. The hunters employed by
the fur companies either were engaged
on a salary of from $500 to $500 a
year, or on shares, being outfitted by
the employers. The free trappers fit
ted themselves out, owned allegiance
to no man, hunted where they chose
and sold their peItries only at the
fort or rendezvous where the best
the west began with the Lewis and
Clark expedition and had seen it's best
days in 1860.
From Rockies to Pacific
The mountain man was equally at
home in the hostile Blackfeet country
of the Upper Missouri, among the Colo
RADIO mountain parks, on the desert
west of Salt Lake or in the dance halls |
of Santa Fe or Taos. In their ranks
were found only the most intrepid
spirits, brave ana fierce In combat !
cool and sagacious in the strategy Of
border warfare, efficient end depend
able in any emergency, faithful to their
own code of honor and loyal to the
death to their comrades. Gold they
seldom saw. but a pack of beaver skins
represented q gamblers stake, and at
the trading posts or mountain rendez-
vous where they sold their pelts, trad
ing was followed by the widest orgies
of drinking and gaming, rs well as ex-
cesses In nearby camps of IndiansI
which seldom ended without loss Of
life. The trapper had his vices, as
well as his virtues.
Activities of the free trsppers were
not always confined to taking beaver
and other skins. The variety of ad-
ventures they experienced and the
distances they frequently
covered within the space of a year
stagger belief. One party Of sixteen,
a successful trapping season on
the Yellowstone in the late 3Os, turned
from the Blackfeet country
to Bent's Fort on the Arkansas In the
and after selling their packs
and indulging in a protracted spree,
to make q foray on the
missions a thousand miles
distant in quest Of horses and mules,
the property of the S~paniards, which
they considered legitimate booty. Under