Bridger Mountains: called Chee'tawaxaawe, or Wolf Mountains, by the Crow, this Range of uplifted sedimentary blocks looms large in the history of Bozeman and the Gallatin Valley.

Jim Bridger (1804 - 1881) was one of the second generation of mountain men who followed in the footsteps of Lewis & Clark.  He was trapper, a guide, an Army scout, and one of the most famous frontiersmen.  These mountains were called the Bridgers after him, not just to honor him, but because he was actually there.  Osborn Russell was the first to call the area Bridger Canyon when he recorded in his diary that he, Kit Carson, W.F. Drannan, and Jim Bridger trapped here in 1856.  Drannan, in his book, 31 Years in the Plains and Mountains tells how they came from Fort Benton down the Shields River Valley, up Brackett Creek, and on to the Gallatin Valley in 1858.  Whatever the exact date, Jim Bridger used the information later, during the Red Cloud War of 1866-68, when he led a wagon train from Fort Bridger on the Oregon Trail to Bozeman and the Montana gold fields.  This route, thought to be safer than John Bozeman's trail, went west of the Big Horn Mountains and avoided Sioux country.  After crossing the Yellowstone River, it progressed up the Shields River Valley to enter the Bridger Canyon via Brackett Creek, then on to Bridger Creek and the Gallatin Valley.

The first permanent white activity occurred in 1867 when soldiers from Fort Ellis built a road up the canyon and a small fort near the present ski area...