Mountain Men

 

What does a 1950's road map have to do with Mountain Men? A lot.  Modern maps miss most memorable markers. We turn to old road maps to find stuff not shown on newer maps. We happen to physically own this particular Mobilgas map*. That's how we discovered the Samuel Parker Monument shown above.  Practically every map of every age and stripe shows the Old Fort Bonneville marker but this is the only map we've found that shows the Samuel Parker Monument.  Why is that relevant?

Well, if you begin to study Samuel Parker, you quickly get sucked into the endless galaxy and universe of early trappers who were also called Mountain Men. You see, this area of Wyoming literally drips with Mountain Man history.  The Upper Green River was sort of a vortex that attracted thousands of Mountain Men for the epic annual rendezvous. Samuel Parker had the audacity to attempt to preach The Word of God to the barbarian Mountain Men and so that's why Parker has his own monument.  But there's more.

By studying Samuel Parker, you come face-to-face with Alfred Jacob Miller, a uniquely talented artist who recorded the Mountain Men and Natives in all their weird splendor.  Miller's work is the only way modern people can glimpse what life was like back in the Days of The Trappers and their Rendeavous.

To drive up the Hoback River and out of the Columbia River Basin into the equally sprawling Colorado River Basin is to travel in the footsteps of early Natives and the earliest commercial encroachment of Anglo expansion.  You see, Mountain Men weren't happy go lucky survivalists.  Nope they were the long arm of America's first push of pseudo industrial expansion into the Western wilds.  The making of beaver hats was a major industry. Demand for beaver fur led to the near-extinction of the Eurasian beaver and the North American beaver in succession. It seems likely that only a sudden change in style saved the beaver.  Beaver sparked what could easily be termed the West's first gold rush. The skins themselves were each akin to a gold nugget in value.  Many men fought and died over beaver skins.  The rush to scour The West of beaver sparked the first wave of violent hostilities between the Natives and their Anglo-American nemesis.  Practically every so-called Mountain Man was employed by one of the mega fur companies that did box office business in the beaver hat supply chain.

The trappers and Mountain Men have been glorified by Hollywood and best-selling authors until they bear faint resemblance to their genuine rough and rowdy selves.