James Felix Bridger (17 March 1804-17 July 1881) was an American mountain man, trapper, US Army scout, and wilderness guide of the Wild West.
Biography[]
James Felix Bridger was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1804, the son of an innkeeper. He was raised in St. Louis, Missouri and was orphaned at a young age, after which he ran away from his apprenticeship to a blacksmith and joined William Henry Ashley's fur trapping expedition up the Missouri River. During this time, he made the acquaintance of Hugh Glass, who was mauled by a bear in 1823 and was abandoned by his colleagues; John S. Fitzgerald coerced Bridger into not helping Glass. In 1824, Bridger was among the first whites to explore the Yellowstone region and the first white to explore the Great Salt Lake. Bridger purchased a fur trapping company from Jedediah Smith in 1830 and explored the continental interior between southern Colorado and Canada and from the Missouri River to Idaho and Utah. In 1843, he established Fort Bridger in Wyoming, and, in 1846, he offered the Donner Party a "shortcut" through the Sierra Nevada that resulted in their deaths. Bridger later served as a US Army guide during the Utah War, as chief guide on William F. Raynolds' Yellowstone expedition, as a guide at Fort Laramie froom 1863 to 1864, and as a scout under Colonel Henry B. Carrington during Red Cloud's War, after which he returned to Missouri in 1868 and went blind by 1875. He died at his farm near Kansas City in 1881.