Captain Benjamin Bonneville

 Wyoming Fact & Fiction

February 7, 2022

Today, I will go way back in Wyoming history to talk about Captain Benjamin Bonneville. Bonneville might be best remembered because of the tales told of him by Washington Irving. Although romanced and glorified, that book published in 1837 – The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, made Bonneville famous. It is a good thing because Bonneville started with leave from the Army but overstayed his time in the west by a couple of years. After a bit of an oral reprimand, the Army reinstated Bonneville to his rank and position in the military after his three-year wandering sabbatical.

So what did Bonneville do? He found his way with one hundred and ten men and twenty-eight wagons over south-pass first traversed by the Ashley party six years earlier. This passage of so many men and wagons opened up what would soon become the Oregon Trail – the new gateway to the west coast. Bonneville traveled from Independence, Missouri, crossed the Little Blue in Nebraska, followed the Platte to the Sweetwater, and then led his men through south pass to the Green River. On the Green, he met Lucien Fontenelle of the American Fur Company and built Fort Bonneville. That fort near present-day Pinedale was completed by early August in 1832. It did not take long for heavy winter snows to cause Bonneville and his men to abandon the fort for a more mild location. The fort was so short-lasting that it was later dubbed Bonneville’s Folly or Fort Nonsense. Although nothing remains of the fort today, the site is marked and on the National Register of Historic Places.

 

Wyoming Trivia – two questions today

Q1 – Washington Irving might be famous in the west for writing his tales of Captain Bonneville, but he is best known for writing two of the most famous short stories in literary history. Can you name one or both?

Q2 – Before Captain Bonneville reached Green River, there had already been seven mountain man rendezvous in the area. What, located in the town of Pinedale today, celebrates those early Wyoming times?

 

Answers

Q1 – Rip Van Winkle (1819) & The legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820)

Q2 – The Museum of the Mountain Man

 

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Today’s photos were taken last week in and around my little town of Guernsey and all taken while on one of my many daily walks.

See you next week!