Following Thomas “Broken Hand” Fitzpatrick
On the trapper trail from Wyoming’s Fort Laramie to La Junta, Colorado.
By: Candy Moulton 02/01/2009
Irish immigrant Thomas Fitzpatrick signed on with William Ashley to head out West in search of beaver in 1823.
He traveled up the Missouri River, and from there he joined his fellow mountain-bound men in a confrontation with Arikaras. Surviving the fight, he continued on into central Wyoming and wintered in the Wind River Valley with Bible-toting mountain man Jedediah Smith.
The following spring, the men crossed South Pass—a break in the Rocky Mountains over which hundreds of thousands of emigrants would eventually cross—to trap in Green River country.
We will follow Fitzpatrick’s trail starting in eastern Wyoming, at Fort Laramie, which began as a fur trading post known as Fort William. This National Historic Site interprets four major eras in Western history: mountain men, American Indians, overland trail travelers and the frontier military. Fitzpatrick had a hand in all of them.
Guiding the Emigrants
Fitzpatrick, already well established in the mountain trade, came to Fort William bringing a supply of trade goods destined for the rendezvous in 1832. In 1841, he guided Belgian Jesuit Pierre DeSmet and emigrants west across Kansas and Nebraska, stopping at Fort Laramie to resupply before continuing over the route that would become the Oregon and California Trails. In the group headed to Oregon was Ezra Meeker, a man who, more than half a century later, would map and mark the Oregon Trail. Also in the party were California-bound John Bidwell and John Bartleson. All of the emigrants sought free land where they could forge better lives. They resupplied at Fort Laramie before traveling farther west.
Fitzpatrick was back at Fort Laramie many times in his life, including in 1851, when he took part in the first major treaty conference with Plains tribes. Roughly 10,000 members of the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Assiniboin, Gros-Ventre, Mandan, Crow and Arikara tribes agreed to allow roads—such as the routes to Oregon and California—to cross their lands. (The Shoshones, under Chief Washakie, came to the council but left after an attack against them by some Lakotas.)
From Fort Laramie, we will follow the route Fitzpatrick took with the 1841 emigrants by traveling west on U.S. 20-26 and I-25 to Casper. This is a good place for an overnight stay. I recommend staying at the Ramada Plaza Rivershore and eating a delicious meal at Poor Boys Steakhouse just down the street. Be sure to allow time to visit Fort Caspar and the National Historic Trail Interpretive Center, which focuses on the last crossing of the trails as the California (Oregon, California and Mormon) routes left the North Platte River here and struck out toward the Sweetwater Valley. Leaving Casper, toward Sweetwater, follow Highway 220 southwest to Independence Rock and then to Muddy Gap before turning northwest on U.S. 287.
As you enter the southern Wind River Valley near Lander (where Fitzpatrick spent his first winter in the West back in 1823-24), turn southwest on Highway 28 and cross South Pass. At Farson, stop at the recently-renovated Farson Merc for some ice cream before continuing west along the Oregon-California trail route by staying on Highway 28 to the junction with Highway 372, turn north there, then southwest on U.S. 189. Head west on U.S.30 to Montpelier, Idaho, where you can visit the National Oregon/California Trail Center. Tell my good friend Becky Smith, who manages this center, that I sent you.
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