My name is Jim Bridger, American mountain man, trapper, Army scout, and wilderness guide. I’ve trapped and scouted a vast expanse of land in the Western United States and was among the first mountain men to explore the natural wonders of the Yellowstone Region. But that’s a story for another time. For now, it’s 1844 and I’m overwintering at Fort Union, situated on the Missouri River near its confluence with the Yellowstone.

Since 1828, Fort Union has dominated the region’s fur trade. I had heard tales of this grand fort, with its white palisade walls and bright red roofs from fellow mountain men, and concur that it is mighty splendid. For the most part, trade at Fort Union has been conducted peacefully, with Northern Plains tribes, primarily Assiniboine but also Cree, Blackfeet, Chippewa, Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, and Sioux delivering beaver pelts and brain-tanned buffalo hides for shipment downriver to St. Louis. In exchange, the Native traders leave the Fort with manufactured goods, such as beads, blankets, guns, pipes, cloth, and cookware. It is believed that Fort Union, part of old John Jacon Astor’s American Fur Company, annually trades over 25,000 buffalo robes and nearly $100,000 in merchandise, a fact I can easily believe.

I’ve witness peaceful coexistence between the cultures involved in trading during my time at the Fort, though rumor has it that there’s a bit of a dark side to the post, with stories of conspiracies, family feuds, pitched battles, drunken brawls, and even cold blooded murders being told around bonfires. Perhaps tensions are running high because for the past four years, since 1840, the price of furs and hides have been falling, a decline that will certainly impact Fort Union if it continues. I’ll be departing Fort Union once the ground begins to thaw, though I know my travels will bring me back through here, to one of the few places where the native traders and white settlers have found common ground and mutual benefit through commercial exchange and cultural acceptance, something I don’t see everyday.

The story of Fort Union continued after Jim Bridger departed, and while little visible trace remains of the grand Fort visited by Jim Bridger, John James Audobon, Sitting Bull, and many others, the fort’s historic significance earned its designation as a National Historic Landmark in 1961. Since 1985, archaeological excavations and careful research has allowed for the reconstruction of the post’s buildings, atop the footprints of the original structures. Standing near the fort, visitors can see what it must have been like for Jim Bridger to arrive, no doubt exhausted from months of being on the frontier, looking to enjoy some respite on the Upper Missouri River for the winter.