Jim Bridger was a well-known 19th-century trader, scout, explorer, and promoter who established many trails based on his knowledge of Native American routes. He and a partner built a wooden stockade trading post here in 1842. By this time the “mountain man” era was passing swiftly, and the post traded not just with Native Americans but with the emigrant trains that were starting to stream westward. Here the westward-bound Emigrant Trail split into the Mormon Trail (and later the Central Overland branch of the California Trail) to the southwest, and…
