Helpful Score: 1
A Great book anout a great Mountain Man, Explorer etc.
Lot of information and stories about his time and life.If your into the history of the West read this book.
Lot of information and stories about his time and life.If your into the history of the West read this book.
As an expert on the Old West in the 19th C., the author employs a rather folksy style to acquaint readers with those days, rather than a more academic phraseology. This makes the book accessible to even junior high school students with a high interest in the 1810s-1850s, offering a window into life then. Mr. Vestal knew well the published sources and interviewed old timers, including Indians, in the 1920s and 1930s.
St. Louis had only 2,000 residents when Jim Bridger was a teenager of the jumping off place to points West.
The description of the ferocity of the grizzly bear leads me to consider that it was an important factor in the failure of the settlers of Alta California to explore the interior.
Mr. Vestal, covering Bridger's career as a trapper, makes a good case that his outstanding skill in that area was as an explorer, able to remember terrain and locations, and thus locate good trapping areas. He knew 'how to live in' the country in question.
While the author uses the apparently contemporary term 'cussed Indians' often, he notes the qualities of the American Indians that were so admired by the mountain men. Mr. Bridger's biography conveys well the strong opposition offered by the Indians--they took many horses, goods, and lives. I would argue that is why so many football teams adopted Indian monikers when high schools became widespread in the early 20th C.
While I knew Fort Bridger was a private enterprise, I hadn't realized that Fort Laramie, Fort Hall, etc. were built for the fur trade, not as a station for the rather small number of soldiers enlisted in those days. Serving emigrants did offer Bridger a living after the fur trade declined. The economics of the fur trade are considered to have been shaky by the author, given the expense of transport and the numerous losses from weather and Indian raids.
In the closing chapter, Mr. Vestal laments that none of the journalists of the day bothered to interview Bridger. I would imagine there was no interest as I recall Ezra Meeker.
There is an index and a bibliography, plus a few footnotes and endnotes.
St. Louis had only 2,000 residents when Jim Bridger was a teenager of the jumping off place to points West.
The description of the ferocity of the grizzly bear leads me to consider that it was an important factor in the failure of the settlers of Alta California to explore the interior.
Mr. Vestal, covering Bridger's career as a trapper, makes a good case that his outstanding skill in that area was as an explorer, able to remember terrain and locations, and thus locate good trapping areas. He knew 'how to live in' the country in question.
While the author uses the apparently contemporary term 'cussed Indians' often, he notes the qualities of the American Indians that were so admired by the mountain men. Mr. Bridger's biography conveys well the strong opposition offered by the Indians--they took many horses, goods, and lives. I would argue that is why so many football teams adopted Indian monikers when high schools became widespread in the early 20th C.
While I knew Fort Bridger was a private enterprise, I hadn't realized that Fort Laramie, Fort Hall, etc. were built for the fur trade, not as a station for the rather small number of soldiers enlisted in those days. Serving emigrants did offer Bridger a living after the fur trade declined. The economics of the fur trade are considered to have been shaky by the author, given the expense of transport and the numerous losses from weather and Indian raids.
In the closing chapter, Mr. Vestal laments that none of the journalists of the day bothered to interview Bridger. I would imagine there was no interest as I recall Ezra Meeker.
There is an index and a bibliography, plus a few footnotes and endnotes.
