"That ancient
trail...from prehistoric times to the present."
FROM 13,000 YEARS AGO:
The history of human occupation in the Yellowstone River drainage
can be traced back to around 13,000 years ago. Excavations at Pictograph Cave (south of
Billings, Montana) in the late 1930s and 1940s showed continual habitation for at least
5,000 years.
THE EXPLORERS, from the 1740s:
Years before Lewis and Clark, Pierre la Verendrye's reports to the
governor of Canada in the mid-1700s indicate that la Verendrye and his sons came into
northeastern Wyoming and southeastern Montana in search of a passage to the Pacific Ocean
and may have been the first white explorers in the region. In 1802 Charles LeRaye
accompanied a Hidatsa/Crow hunting party to Little Goose Creek in the Big Horn Mountains
and wintered with them at the mouth of the Bighorn River.
In 1804 French trader Francois Antoine Larocque, accompanying a
party of Crows, met Lewis and Clark at the Mandan villages in present North Dakota. He was
looking into the possibilities of fur trade in the Yellowstone Valley region. He
accompanied the Crows back to Bighorn Mountain country for the rest of the year. Larocque
traveled the same route as LeRaye, the same route the Bozeman Trail would take sixty years
later.
Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery wove through areas that
would become the Bozeman Trail. On the return trip, Sacajawea led Clark and a small group
over "an old buffalow road" to a pass, which today is named Bozeman Pass.
Mountain men John Colter and Manuel Lisa passed through the area, followed by Jim Bridger,
whose experience along the Bozeman Trail extended over thirty years. Although the trail
has become known as the trail opened by John Bozeman, Bridger played the major role in
establishing the routes of the Bozeman Trail.
In the 1840s Alexander Culbertson guided the Catholic Priest and
Missionary, Father Pierre DeSmet over much of what would become the Bozeman Trail.
Summer 1851:
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCES it will convene a treaty
conference at Fort Laramie in September. Alexander
Culbertson of the American Fur Company and Pierre De Smet, Jesuit missionary, escort
representatives of the Upper Missouri tribes to the conference. From Fort Sarpy on the
Yellowstone River, they blaze a path that mirrors what will become the Bozeman Trail.
DeSmet records that their route bears "not the slightest perceptible vestige of a
beaten track."
Fall 1851:
THE FORT LARAMIE TREATY recognizes the area
between Powder River and the Big Horn mountains as Crow territory, but also recognizes the
right of other tribes to hunt on and pass over the land.
1855-60:
SIOUX & CHEYENNE EXPANDED in force between
Powder River and the Bighorns, pushing their enemies the Crow Indians, who had occupied
the land for about 300 years, north to the Bighorn River.
1861-1865:
WHILE THE UNION ARMY concentrated most of its
forces on the Civil War, volunteer cavalry units garrisoned military posts along the North
Platte and Sweetwater Rivers to protect telegraph, stage, and emigrant routes.
1862:
GOLD IS DISCOVERED at Bannack, bringing in
thousands of gold seekers to Bannack, Virginia City, and other towns in present Montana.
1863:
THE BOZEMAN TRAIL WAS ATTEMPTED AS A SHORTER ROUTE
to the gold fields of Montana, through the Northern Plains Indians' last and best hunting
grounds. A wagon train led by John Bozeman and John Jacobs had only traveled 140 miles
north of their departure point at Deer Creek when they were confronted by a large party of
Northern Cheyennes and some Sioux warriors on Rock Creek, four miles north of present
Buffalo, Wyoming. The train turned back to the main emigrant road, while Bozeman and
several men went on horseback through the Bighorn Basin to the Montana settlements.
Bozeman's party entered the Gallatin Valley through the pass they named Bozeman Pass.
1864:
THE BOZEMAN TRAIL WAS ESTABLISHED. Four trains
consisting of 1,500 people departed the North Platte River at Richard's Bridge east of
present Casper and traveled the trail to the Montana settlements. The route of the trail
this year was established by John Bozeman, Allen Hurlbut, and Jim Bridger. The only
encounter with local tribes was an attack by a large Cheyenne and Sioux war party against
the Townsend train, on the Powder River east of present Kaycee, Wyoming.
1865:
THE POWDER RIVER INDIAN EXPEDITION, commanded by
General Patrick E. Connor, campaigned in the Powder River Basin in August and September.
Jim Bridger, Connor's chief guide, established a new route of the Bozeman Trail from the
North Platte River near present Douglas to just south of present Buffalo. After
establishing Fort Connor at the new Powder River crossing, Connor's command continued
north to the Tongue River and attacked a non-hostile Arapaho village at present
Ranchester, driving many Arapahos into alliance with the Sioux and Cheyennes.
THE SAWYERS EXPEDITION, led by James A. Sawyers,
was a federally-funded expedition authorized to build a road from Niobrara, on the
Missouri River, to Virginia City, Montana. The expedition, with a military escort,
traveled over the Bozeman Trail at the same time Connor was campaigning in the Powder
River Basin.
FORT CONNOR, soon renamed Fort Reno, was
established on the new route of the Bozeman Trail in August.
TREATIES SIGNED AT FORT SULLY were claimed by
the U.S. Government to have restored peace, though many Sioux leaders did not sign them
and were unaware of a provision allowing the government to build roads and forts in the
territory.
THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE, an attack by Col.
Chivington's troops on a friendly Cheyenne Indian camp in Colorado, killing and mutilating
men, women and children, caused the Cheyenne to ally with the Sioux and Arapaho at the
Fetterman Fight the next year.
1866:
SOME 2000 PEOPLE in numerous trains traveled the
Bozeman Trail to Montana. In Wyoming, they all used the route opened by Bridger the
preceeding year. In Montana, James Sawyers opened a new route of the trail west from the
Bighorn River crossing in August that was used by all subsequent travelers.
COLONEL HENRY B. CARRINGTON garrisoned Fort Reno
in June and planned two more forts to protect civilian travelers along the Bozeman Trail.
Fort Phil Kearny was established on Piney Creek in July, near present Sheridan and
Buffalo, Wyoming. Fort C. F. Smith was established ninety miles north of Phil Kearny, on
the Bighorn River at the mouth of the Bighorn Canyon, in August.
THE ENTIRE COMMAND OF 81 MEN UNDER CAPT. WILLIAM J.
FETTERMAN WAS DESTROYED near Fort Phil Kearny by combined forces of Sioux,
Cheyennes, and Arapahos on December 21.
JOHN "PORTUGEE" PHILLIPS AND DANIEL DIXON WERE
SENT TO HORSESHOE STATION to alert the army and the world of the disaster of
December 21. Phillips rode on alone to Fort Laramie, arriving during a grand ball at Old
Bedlam on Christmas night.
1867:
CARRINGTON WAS TRANSFERRED FROM COMMAND of Fort
Phil Kearny in January (initial orders were in process before the Fetterman disaster);
Colonel Henry Wessells took command and was later replaced by Colonel Jonathan Smith.
CHEYENNE INDIANS ATTACK A HAYING PARTY NEAR FORT C. F.
SMITH in what is known as the Hayfield Fight on August 1 and are repulsed.
AN INDIAN ATTACK against a wood camp near Fort
Phil Kearny is repulsed in what is known as the Wagon Box Fight on August 2.
1868:
THE TREATY OF 1868 calls for the abandonment of
Forts Reno, Phil Kearny, and C. F. Smith, and of the Bozeman Trail, by the army. The
abandoned forts are burned, or partially burned, by the Indians.
1869:
THE COMPLETION OF THE TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD
ends the three decades of the western emigrant trails era. Until the Indian wars on the
Northern Plains in 1876-77, the country is left to the Indian tribes.
1874:
IN THE INTERIM between the Fort Laramie Treaty
in 1868, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, both the Yellowstone Expedition and
Custer's Black Hills expedition traveled parts of the Bozeman Trail.
1876-77:
THE GREAT SIOUX WAR
THE CAMPAIGNS OF GENERAL GEORGE CROOK used the
Bozeman Trail from their supply headquarters at Fort Fettermen to their encampments near
Sheridan and Big Horn, Wyoming. Here Crook camped for almost three months before and after
the Battle of the Rosebud, which was a prelude to the battle of the Little Bighorn a week
later, in June 1876.
Crook circled that fall through Montana, North Dakota, and South
Dakota to Fort Robinson, Nebraska, then back to Fort Fetterman, near present Douglas,
Wyoming. From there, in November, he mounted a campaign against the Dull Knife village in
the Hole in the Wall country west of Kaycee, Wyoming, which subsequently marked the end of
the lives of the Northern Cheyennes as a free-living people.
The conclusion of the Great Sioux War opened the area to military
occupation and private settlement.
1880's:
IN THE 1880's the trail became the route for
settlers coming into the region from the south and west, and segments were used for
telegraph lines and stagecoach routes.
TODAY:
Today many of our major highways and county roads follow the old
trail, that "ancient trail, from prehistoric times to the present." |
