Archives

From Sand Hills to Forests and Mountains

Harold Showers writes a matter-of-fact memoir, but many today would find his early life in the 1920’s and 1930’s on the Upper Green River of western Wyoming exotic and primitive. As a child and young man, Harold witnessed the power of weather, vast distance, wild animals, illness and plain hard times – things that could make a man question his own survival and fear for his family.

But whether trapping for mink, leading hunters into the high peaks, packing the mail by dogsled or enjoying a Sunday picnic with fresh-caught trout and homemade ice cream, Harold and his family also managed to experience the very best a life in the mountains can offer.

Harold’s down-to-earth approach doesn’t keep him from expressing the awe and wonder he felt in the Wyoming wilderness. This book is not only a record of what it took to hang on in the Kendall Valley, but also a testimony by an early day settler who loved the land because he knew it so well.

ISBN – 0-9768113-4-0

171 Pages

Bear Print Press, 1988

Fur Trade and Exploration

Opening the Far Northwest, 1821-1852

The volume discusses the role that the fur traders had in the exploration of the far Northwest, an area that includes the western Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and eastern Alaska. (Choice)

ISBN – 978-0-8061-2093-5

330 Pages

University of Oklahoma Press, 1983

Fur Trade and Rendezvous of the Green River Valley -HB

Published by Museum of the Mountain Man – 2005

Edited by Fred R. Gowans & Brenda D. Francis

138 pages, 8 x 11 inches, Hardback $25.95

The Green River Valley has a story to tell….

In 1824, a group of fur trappers crossed South Pass, in what is now western Wyoming. They entered the beaver-rich valley of the Green River and kicked off the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade. Little did they know, they would also create America’s first far western hero, the Mountain Man.

For 16 years, the Green River Valley served as the center of the mountain fur trade, supplying prime beaver pelts as well as hosting a majority of the renowned annual rendezvous. On this stage, some of the most colorful events in the early history of the American West took place.

This book introduces the history of the fur trade and the cast of characters who plied the unpredictable and sometimes fatal business in Wyoming’s Green River Valley until 1840. Meet the spirited individuals from all walks of life who were willing to risk all they had, every day, for a chance to gain wealth, power and adventure through the harvest of skins.

Contents

Introduction – by Brenda D. Francis

The Rendezvous Era – by Kerry R. Oman

The “Fair of the Wilderness” – by Dale F. Topham

Attire, Arms & Accoutrements – by Stephen V. Banks

Key Men of the Rendezvous – by Dale F. Topham

A Fur Trade Timeline

Indian Participation in the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade – by Jay H. Buckley

Books, Bibles, and Beaver Trappers – by Doug M. Erickson

Images of the Mountain Man – by S. Matthew Despain

Map and Historical Sites – by Kerry R. Oman

The Museum of the Mountain Man – by Laurie Hartwg

Other Contributing Authors

Jim Hardee

Kelly Sanderson

Lawrence L Francis

Jim Wirshborn

Artists

Alfed Jacob Miller

John Clymer

David Wright

Richard Luce

Carl Bodmer

Joseph Fama

Charles M. Russel

Tucker Smith

Nicholas Coleman

Jim Norton

Fur Traders Trappers and Mountain Men of the Upper Missouri

John Jacob Astor’s dream of empire took shape as the American Fur Company. At Astor’s retirement in 1834, this corporate monopoly reached westward from a depot on Mackinac Island to subposts beyond the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers.

ISBN: 0-8032-7269-3

138 Pages

University of Nebraska Press, 1995

Genuine Beaver Pelt – Large

Our genuine beaver pelts are of great quality.  On average they measure about 32 inches long and 18 inches wide. Measurements can vary from time to time.

Most pelts are of a light to dark brown color.  They still have their guard hairs attached to the pelt. Most include the face of the beaver. Pelts have been tanned and are ready to be sold.

Genuine Beaver Pelt – Small

Our genuine beaver pelts are of great quality.  On average they measure about 20 inches long and 14 inches wide.  Measurements can vary from time to time.

Most pelts are of a light to dark brown color.  They still have their guard hairs attached to the pelt.  Most include the face of the beaver.  Pelts are tanned and ready to be sold.

Give Your Heart to the Hawks

In Give Your Heart to the Hawks, Win Belvins presents a poetic tribute to these dauntless “first Westerners” and their incredible adventures. Here, among many, are the stories of:

-John Colter, who, in 1808, naked and without weapons or food, escaped captivity by the Blackfeet and ran and walked two hundred fifty miles to Fort Lisa at the mouth of the Yellowstone River.

-Hugh Glass, who was mauled by a grizzly in 1823 and left for dead by his trapper companions, crawled three hundred miles to Fort Kiowa on the Missouri.

-Kit Carson, who ran away from home at age seventeen, became a legendary mountain man in his twenties, and served as a scout and guide for John C. Fremont’s westward explorations of the 1840’s

-Jedediah Smith, a tall, gaunt, Bible-reading New Yorker whose trapping expeditions ranged from the Rockies to California and who was killed by Comanches on the Cimarron in 1831.

ISBN – 978-0-7653-1435-2

336 Pages

A Forge Book, Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.,1973

 

Gloomy Terrors and Hidden Fires

From 1810, when a newspaper published the first account of “Colter’s Run,” to 2012, when one hundred and fourscore participants in Montana’s annual John Colter Run charged up and down rugged trails—even across the waist-deep Gallatin River—interest in Colter, the alleged discoverer of Yellowstone Park, has never waned. Drawing on this endless fascination with an individual often called the first American mountain man, this book offers an innovative, comprehensive study of a unique figure in American history. Despite his prominent role in the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the early exploration of the West, Colter is distinctly different from Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Kit Carson, and the other legends of the era because they all left documents behind that allow access to the men themselves. Colter, by contrast, left nothing, not a single letter, diary, or reminiscence, so that second-, third-, or fourth-hand accounts of his adventures are all we have. Guiding readers through this labyrinth of hearsay, rumor, and myth, this is the first book to tell the whole story of Colter and his legend, examining everything that is known—or supposedly known—about Colter and showing how historians and history buffs alike have tried in vain to get back to Colter the man, know what he said and feel what he felt, but have ended up never seeing him clearly, finding instead an enigma they cannot unravel.

ISBN – 978-1-4422-2600-5

243 Pages

Rowman & Littlefield, 2014

Going Along With Lewis & Clark

Step into the boats at St. Louis and travel along with the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Up the Missouri River all the way to its headwaters. Over the Rocky Mountains. Down more rivers to the Pacific Ocean. You’ll be gone most of three years, rowing and pulling the boats, walking, climbing mountains on horseback, carrying boats and supplies around big waterfalls and river rapids.

Everything you’ll need but didn’t bring along, you have to hunt, trade for with Indians, or make for yourself. You can’t speak the languages of the people you will meet, but sometimes interpreters can help.

You don’t know exactly how far you’re going, or when you’ll return. You’ll see animals and mountains and waters like nothing you ever knew before. Most of the people who already live there will welcome you, share their food, and enjoy visiting, singing, and dancing together.

ISBN – 978-1-56037-151-9

48 Pages

FarCountry Press, 2000

 

 

Great Gunmakers for the Early West

Great Gunmakers for the Early West

Three Volume Set – Hard Cover with Protective Sleeve

Written by James D. Gordon

Within the three volume set you will find Gordon’s personal collection of firearms of the American Frontier. With this set his collection is more accessible to all who enjoy owning this three volume set. It contains most of his collection and some other collections as well. Jim Gordon sees the firearms that served America through its frontier period by falling into three chronological and geographical periods.

Volume One – English, 176 Pages

Volume Two – Eastern U.S., 175 Pages

Volume Three – Western U. S., 156 Pages

James D. Gordon, 2007

Great Knife Makers for the Early West

A great book that discusses the many different types of Knives that were used during the time of the early west. It also includes the knife makers, both English and American makers are included.

283 Pages

James D. Gordon, 2010

Green River Rendezvous T-Shirt

Tan T-shirt with Green River Rendezvous Image on the front. Museum logo on the left sleeve with nothing printed on the back.

Lettering and picture are in dark brown.

Sizes available – Small, Medium, Large, X-Large, 2XL, and 3XL.

 

Gun Accessories & Hand Weapons of the Fur Trade

This volume is 442 pages long, with 671 illustrations, most in color. It has eighteen chapters covering fighting knives, bayonets, dag knives, pipe tomahawks, arrowpoints, lances, Missouri war axes, spike tomahawks, swords, powder horns, flasks, hunting pouches, and armor.

Other subjects include gun powder, lead, bullet molds, cartridges and loading tools, gun parts, wood, percussion caps, gun flints, gunstock clubs, and knife clubs.

There is a full index and an appendix dealing with the changing chronology of trade goods over several centuries. A second appendix reproduces artist George Catlin’s observations on Indian weapons. – Museum of the Fur Trade

ISBN – 9780-9126-11-19-8

Museum of the Fur Trade, 2021

Guns On The Early Frontier

This thoroughly documented, authoritative and highly readable book not only details the weapons used during the settlement and westward expansion of America, but also describes their use by fur traders, trappers, soldiers, and Native Americans. The result is a lively historical examination of the momentous events that were strongly influenced by the gun trade.

ISBN – 978-0-486-43681-4

395 Pages

Dover Publications, 2005

Halfway Between Heaven and Hell

Hattie Haley Johnson and her family settled and survived in the rural West when the region was no longer considered a wild frontier; but it wasn’t truly civilized, either. From the late nineteenth century until deep into the Great Depression, horses were vital for work and transportation, electricity  was a dream, and the strength of a man’s back defined his ability to support his family.

Hattie’s life was full f challenges and hard work, but it also brimmed with adventure and variety. She ranched, raised children, helped her husband, Frank Johnson, run a freight operation between Jackson Hole and Idaho, and migrated from southwest Wyoming to the Canada border and back again. Through it all, she nourished herself and those around her with a caring spirit and sense of humor. That is why her story is so compelling.

“How in the world did they do it?” we often wonder. Hattie’s story will show you how.

ISBN – 0-9768113-5-9

148 Pages

Sublette County Historical Society, 1980