Along Jim Bridger's Trail

Thank. You. All right Jim Bridger's trail in 1864 was the first quickest and least hazardous route for settlers to follow as they migrated to the gold fields of Montana territory in wagon trains had essentially been granted safe passage by Indian tribes for Bridger's route west of the Big Horn Mountains in Wyoming. Because the tribes that controlled the area were largely interested in keeping their hunting grounds east of the bay Koreans free of government and settler dinner ferrets in celebration of Jim Bridger's pioneering spirit. The Wyoming Centennial wagon train was conceived as an event would help celebrate a century of Wyoming statehood. The wagon train attracted over one hundred wagons and on some days more than a thousand participants on horseback or on foot.

That pioneer spirit was reflected by the participants in the 1990 wagon train. Will tell of their experiences along Jim Bridger's trail. It's not an easy it's not. You've got to start from young. You can't read this out of a book. Get off your computer you can take an old broken down to make it could drive you know what it takes to do it. It's not hard if you're not. But it's hard if you don't know about. It.

We think of it as being the people's way to train belongs to everybody in this wagon train is not my wagon train. It's not the board of directors wagon train it belongs to the people that have participated in it and one of the things that really hit me when we when we rolled into Warland. And all the people on the streets were standing there applauding and cheering as it was not just the perch of the participants wagon train but it belonged to all the people. And they really made us feel that it was a it was a pretty overwhelming experience for me. Well John I saw you. When I was high school I worked in a film over the country still after graduating high school and first chance I get. Like I moved up here and just love the country ever since and always wanted to be a cowboy electrician by trade so this is something I really enjoy.

They are doing things they just dreamed about doing but never had the opportunity to do before you know and I think these kids on this wagon train is going to be something that you talk about it for many many years. Bret and I will too you know. Well I think we got a pretty easy compared to what they had a hundred years ago. We have the hay wagon there was trucks hauling hay to it. We've got the port a potty hauled in we have water hauled in here we go out I'll do whatever we feel like it. If it rains we can find a house somewhere to get into maybe or in the world. They didn't have those things. They had to pack

everything they had on our wagons and they went for it. They didn't have all the luxuries of having a gas stove to cook on in the grass the hay all day and they had had for some feed for the horses cows. Even though we were having a rough night this David it's not rough like they had. Just because I retired from the John Deere tractor company two years ago and I've built me a log cabin up in the Sangre de Cristo Colorado and still just been riding them and using some of the border horses I've raised in the last 35 years. And when I heard about this situation here I really couldn't believe it was happening. We are not in this particular sense of the word because

anybody can go on this I mean there is nobody to pour they do it is long as you've got the time. I have several reasons for coming one I am a Civil War re-enactor and when the war was going on Abraham Lincoln couldn't afford to send Yankee troops out here to defend the West. So he went to the Confederate prisoners the Northerners had captured and offered them relays from the federal prisons if they would go West and defend the West and not fight against the union so six thousand Southerners came out to the west and defended this part of the country and many of them stayed when the war ended. And so I think the South ought to be represented here because there's a lot of Southern blood flowing in these gangs out here and that was one reason for coming. Another reason I like living history and that's exactly what they're doing here they're recreating and living history and steadfast in their heritage. And I wanted the experience of learning to drive away three

wagons in your life of own 30 poor original Civil War cannon wrote the book Confederate cannon foundries. Now I'm writing one on the northern boundaries. And with these three wagons you need to tame. I didn't know if I wanted new draft horses or horses. Call Kevin Lauer out at the Rand Creek ranch and he's an outfitter and we struck a deal that I can drive his wagon far and no Sampson and a lot of men kind of a pleasure to learn known and learned a lot and learned how to harness them up and I've been driving almost every day now. How closely to the Bridger trail are you actually sticking. Well we're not at time to time to ride on it and at times we're well off it because some of those trails before took routes that were simple and today there are highways and it's pretty

hard to take a group this size with traffic and working with the Highway Patrol and all the government agencies when you start blocking traffic especially this time in Wyoming when you've got the summertime in the tourist and all that so it just takes a lot a lot of effort. We're on it. Part of the time and we're often a few miles apart of the time of course. When we hit Palau and then we swing west to Cody. At that point we we leave it because the original bridge or trail then continued on up north and into Montana and hooks up with the old Bozeman trail which actually came up on the east side of course the big cattle Horn Mountains which we look at out there now was where the original Bozeman trail took and of course the reason for the bridge or trail was to come west of the mountains because the Indians told back in those days the Indians said. The Sioux said you could go west of the mountains and. Not on the east side so that's how the Jim Bridger trail was originally established in the purpose force and it was a short lived trail.

Because the situation with the Indians changed and. Then the Bozeman trail which was an easier route was then re-established again later on. Really I've only had mules like eight years now and I didn't know nothing about you. I was raised around horses for courses and I can see you're better for what I'm doing because I want to pack. Different hunting or fishing. And I also want to drive. I think it's just a little bit more more economical to do than to do that good horses. Horses are so big you can't pack and get right and I think a mule is a bad back or a better back or should it be a smaller easier to reach and that gets smaller and that's one of my favorite work horse as a poly is you

get to work on the right hand side of this wagon over here. And so she's making the whole trip cause all all this bunch of going on the whole trip. OK so you came up with the we have five cross bred horses that were working Belton already in process and we kind of enjoy that they work well. This is my son Of course Shorty. And that's my horse. She's a brownie. We're going to go all the way cutie drilling in the creek don't rise. OK this is my team I thought I'm here about six months ago at Waverly Iowa. I'm kind of proud of them. They're Appaloosa leopards. See they got all the spots out of their names are Matt and Kitty Sonny and Cher. And we got them home and they was just started to drive and we decided to take

him in and make him into a group of four. And they're real classy on our stagecoach they they give a lot of class that they're getting to like the Wyoming area real well. They're doing us a real good job out here. I mean the horses go on having people sign a petition here. Don't bring the flag supporters and everybody has asked to do it so far has signed it. If. You want to know Are you one of the. You know your life right. Right. But I think. We.

Had to. Get her. For that one reset. And. That. If. You. Can. That a boy. How much. You've got you're. Going to. Read while. Riding along the trail and I saw some people going down into the summer and I thought or maybe I should go down there and see what's up. I looked down and I saw horses running away so I

started running down there was the first one there and then one guy came and started helping me. We went down to the fence and we own that we finally caught him going down a steep hill that the wagons in the lake. Once we get to the wagon because we had to go through the draw was really like death mostly. Then my mom was the first one to go through with that having. Started clapping and I know why and what do these young people think of the efforts of the pioneers. I don't know how they get it done and all this stuff and have roads or water trucks and stuff so unbelievable how they have made the dirt dust blown in your eyes probably starving to death or something like that

or the kids are doing on the wagon train what would you expect the bill learn from the love of animals for one you know out of the do whatever they think they're running these horses getting away from the getting away from that. A lot of ways about it yeah. On Iran it's fun to watch them come in and help you help you try to help you feed some more water. And I kind of like it. Five out of my seven grandchildren have had a chance to be on here and that was the thing that I really wanted to do first was get my grandchildren a chance to see what I write in a wagon train aside and know that they learned a lot in a few days or slow it was wet it was bumpy the nights were out in the boonies. They had a good time. Of course an adventure depends upon who is telling the story and

then we got to see we got a wagon here the other day gotcha is go along and somebody cut in front of him cause one horse to pull back or something and it fell over in the gully in the wagon fell over and Other than that you know oh yeah we have Life Flight helicopter you know we come in we bring the life flight helicopters come in someone gets a bloody nose and. Things like that so today we've had a lot of fun and a lot of things have happened we had that trailer come off that cliff didn't come off the cliff did they try to pull up this hill and I don't know where he learned to drive a trailer but any I got up there and he wanted to keep going he has horses in this trailer but he couldn't make the hill. So they say you backed up but he didn't use a smear when he backed up and he ran the trailer off the side he was hanging about five six feet off the side of the hill there. And they got the they let the horses out the door the front door on the side of the trailer and then they took and we got the army truck up there and we went to kind of back on the road and we got in straight now and he went back up the hill and he was in good shape and then we have to deal with guys like Tom

angel and Jensen and John Kincaid. You know Jake Larkin It's been a fun time it's been a great time. It's a stagecoach is a copy of the Overland stagecoach had it made in New Mexico. It's a 9 passenger sleeping coach which overland only made three. That was when they was in competition with Wells Fargo and several other states companies lathered comes up into the windows and they roll up and to a window which you can see and you can hang your arm out the leather. They told me there was about right at two cow leather coats that supports the coach and then I went and I supported it up a little more and I put the hydraulic brakes on it. This is for six horses to go into the stagecoach run which I got all my levers up there.

But this story a part of it is still got the rich no rich no brakes which you can see right up here with this lever here that I use. And this this all works. The wheels it will stop the wheels. But I use the hydraulics most of time with my team. We. One day we had forty one hundred pounds we was estimate with Coach and we've got eight hundred fifty pound horses and they they made it go really because they're on ball bearings and it rolls really easy it stops easy so the horses don't have to hardly work of pulling. For the wagon train organizers the primary mission was for the well-being of hundreds of 20th century adventurers. A principal organizer also served as trail boss the trail boss is where the buck stops. And that essentially and the director of operations on the person that knows all the ins and outs of how everything all the logistics of this wagon train work together are supposed to work together

and I'm pretty much the one that from the very beginning you know started with a wagon train and I've been there all through it. So I I have a good understanding of how it's supposed to work and I'm. That's where the bucks. Ultimate decision maker. And many others share the responsibility of seeing the wagon train over a 300 mile trail. My duty I drive a team of Belgians at this point. I help with breakfast and supper at the cook shack. I have two kids I'm also taking care of and I play little fiddle at night little camp in entertainment. I'm a writer like Morse and sometimes I'm driving teams. Sometimes I wash dishes just whatever they need done around here. My position as chairman of the Alpha Group. For seven Outfitters. My job is to try to coordinate all the efforts that we're doing together and make it all one on one.

You know effort I guess you could say we've been helping people with that. Any vet needs. We've had some horses that have started coughing we've given some commie medicine and whatnot and we help with the hay and I guess we're just in charge of the circles and people come to us with all kinds of problems and we're trying to appease him. His main concern that I have is to try to get this whole thing to Cody without a mishap as far as horses are concerned horses wagon and you know anything that pertains to that. I feel it's my responsibility to write your own history. OK still anything goes wrong you're there to pick up a record mean if Tim you write a bridle off or tug broke or anything you. You're right there in grab a hold of before anything gets out of hand in gets a wrecker and it's you know the next four days someone else is going to be the right here because some people run the team they can't drive so we'll have to drive the team the next four days with whatever domain there is me I don't do any of this work that they are.

I say you know what. If you stop and look at the whole operation and you look at the support and you look out there you see all the right you see all the tents you see all the people doing things involved in activities and having a great time. I said you know there's had to be a lot of good things done to make this happen. Well basics I think are just besides having enough water and porta potties in this case for this wagon train are to me basics are just good old human contact and knowing that helping each other out is what counts in this world. And then when something happens you don't ask questions you don't stop to wonder what the consequences of the lawsuits might be just help each other and forming some you know forming some real true friendships based on. Based on it on just kindnesses and concern and caring and it doesn't matter if your values are different your politics are different that doesn't even come up. What matters is that

you're there to help each other out you're there to be friends and we give each other hugs in the morning and say good morning and people have been bringing me coffee since I hurt my ribs and helping me take my boots off and in some cases helping me take my pants off. When I was hurting real bad and I said to me that's basics. With Outfitters wagons horses mules water trucks water trucks porta potties and visitors and the sheer logistics of putting 500 to fifteen hundred people on the move over 300 miles of primitive Wyoming landscape the centennial wagon train was a people's event. Well we like to think of it as such an and actually the people of Wyoming the small businessman the individual and the people of other states who are participating supported this wagon train. We have no large major corporate financial contribution. We've had upwards of five ten thousand dollars there's been a largest contribution and those have been from the small business person in Wyoming and we've had individual contributions and that's what's kept this wagon train

flowing. And so we think of it as being the people's wagon train. When you look at the magnitude of this whole thing and what it took to put it together all the stock that has to be fed the people that have it taken care the responsibility to accidents and whatever and whatnot. We've had a couple and there was a helicopter ride in here and picked them up and took them out and have them all out. And this is all a credit to leaders here that put this together. The people I meet and there are so many fantastic people. It's great to run into old friends like this that I haven't seen before or seen for a while and then work with them but it's great to meet new people that I meet and there's a lot of good teams using a lot of good writers here and it's it's great to run into some good good hands for a change. I've never been on a wagon train like this before I've been on cattle drives last 10 12 days and you know when I was a kid we used to Yellowstone River about 25 miles. Good time for growth we will you know when you're going on a thing like

this but I don't think anybody else ever has either. But one of the one of the best things for me besides the satisfying feeling of seeing it actually rolling in all the numbers of people coming from all over the country is the friendships have been formed and I've formed some really good friendships here on this wagon train that I probably never would have formed in any other way. A lot of people who live right in the same town with me that I would have never met had I just been walking down the streets of Cody or you know working at a job or you're out here in the real world you form a lot of lasting bonding friendships because you're back to basics you're back to what life's really all about. And having a wonderful time and meeting wonderful people and getting to know the state of Wyoming real well. And if I start crying I'm sorry because very emotional. It's been lots of fun it's going to be hard to leave it. Happy Birthday Wyoming the whole bit. You know we're all working toward one goal and celebrating

doing our best to have a good time what we're doing. Oh. Wagons. We've got I'm not like inaudible be a lady there is no there's no inflated tires and you talk like this you look like the one I looked up heels to go horses. We've got them too.

Appaloosa Lebert see they got all the spots out of their names or mad little kiddie and Sonny and Cher but most of all we have the people of the Wyoming Centennial wagon train alone Jim Bridger's trail this week on Wyoming Public Television. They're doing things they just dreamed about doing but never had the opportunity to do before.