Bozeman Trail
The Bozeman Trail began as a gold rush trail, a shortcut from the main overland trail on the North Platte River to Virginia City, Bannack and other gold fields in present day Montana. The trail was formally established in 1863 by John Jacobs and John Bozeman, but was really a long-used travel corridor.
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Indians had followed the north-south trails through Powder River country since prehistoric times. The trails were also familiar to early Nineteenth Century explorers, trappers and traders. Captain William Raynolds of the Army Corps of Topographic Engineers led an expedition that covered much of the later Bozeman Trail in 1859-1860. Many of the landmarks and geographic features were mapped and would become familiar to travelers during the next decade. By the time Jacobs and Bozeman made their first explorations south from the gold fields to the Oregon-California Trail on the North Platte River, they were entering well traveled territory.
The route of the Bozeman Trail followed through Wyoming and Montana. This route was shorter, more direct, better watered and altogether a better wagon road than alternative routes. However, there was one very large drawback, the Indians. The trail went directly through the last and best of the Sioux and Cheyenne hunting grounds and the Indians watched as their centuries-old lifestyle, their freedom and very existence were threatened.
A wagon trail led by John Bozeman and John Jacobs had only traveled 140 miles north of their departure point at Deer Creek when they were confronted by a large party of Northern Cheyennes and some Sioux warriors on Rock Creek, four miles north of present Buffalo, Wyoming. The train turned back to the main emigrant road, while Bozeman and several men went on horseback through the Bighorn Basin to the Montana settlements. Bozeman's party entered the Gallatin Valley throughout the pass they named Bozeman Pass.
The emigration period of travel on the Bozeman Trail lasted from 1863 to 1866. During this era, pioneer travel and ferocious military conflict on the trail was the most historically significant. While only thirty-five hundred people traveled its five hundred miles during the four years of emigration, it was claimed as the last great overland emigrant trail in the American West. The warfare between the United States Army and the Northern Plains Indians that erupted along the Bozeman Trail in 1865 to 1866 signaled the beginning of a ten year struggle commonly referred to as "The Indian Wars" that eventually ended with the defeat of the last free-roaming tribes.
So the stage was set for war. With the end of the Civil War, General Grant viewed the opening of the West, and the building of the transcontinental railroad through it, as the nation's greatest challenge. The country's treasury was depleted due to the Civil War, and the discovery of gold in Montana was of importance to the country. As the gold seekers streamed in they were threatened by Indians along the way, and asked the government to protect them. The government responded by ordering the building of forts along the Bozeman Trail, giving the emigrants some measure of support. At the same time, the construction acted as a diversion, keeping the attention of the Indians on the Bozeman trail and away from the transcontinental railroad building further south.
After numerous and bloody battles along the Bozeman Trail lasting nearly five years, Congress created a Peace Commission. The transcontinental railroad was nearing completion and the Bozeman Trail soon would be virtually useless. The diversion had worked in safe guarding the railroad project, "proving more effective to attack the Sioux in the Powder River country than attempting to defend the line in its whole length", a reference to the transcontinental railroad quoted from a telegram sent to General Augur from General Sherman on May 27, 1867.
So in 1868, everything added up to meet the need for peace. All forts were abandoned, later burned to the gound, returning the Powder River Basin to its native people and the closing of the Bozeman Trail. A peace treaty was signed by Red Cloud at Fort Laramie in November of 1868. The country would belong to the Indians for nearly a decade, until the battle at the Little Bighorn.
Today, the Bozeman Trail corridor is still a major north-south travel route, with an Interstate highway replacing the wagon and horseback trails. There are markers and historical interpretive signs at many locations along the historic trail routes. In its wildness and beauty, the land will forever be rich in its history, holding time still with the struggles and hardships in the gold rush era.
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