Wyoming Western Trails Project - Annals of Wyoming - Bridger Trail: An alternate route to the gold fields of Montana Territory in 1864

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Bridger Trail: An alternate route to the gold fields of Montana Territory in 1864

Annals of Wyoming 70:2:12-23
By James A. Lowe
INFO Jim Bridger

"The Bridger Trail was a viable alternative to the Oregon Trail and its variants to reach Virginia City, Montana. .its viability as an alternative route was assured when at least ten trains traveled the Bridger Trail versus only four that took the Bozeman Trail" in 1864. Lack of emigrant travel on most trails in northern Wyoming in 1865, "the fact that the United States Army favored the Bozeman Trail, in 1866, and the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1869 were factors rendering the Bridger Trail obsolete, .until after initial settlement in northern Wyoming Territory during the early 1880s."

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