Bill Sublette: Mountain Man

Bill Sublette (1799—1845) led two lives. Renowned as a hardy mountain man, he ranged the Missouri, Big Horn, Yellowstone, and Sweetwater River country between 1823 and 1833 hunting beaver, fighting Indians, and unwittingly opening the West for settlers (he proved that wagons could be used effectively on the Oregon Trail). Financial success and silk hats, which strangled the fur trade, later forced him to a less adventuresome life in St. Louis as a gentleman farmer, businessman, and politici...