“WE’RE ON THE SHORES OF THE PACIFIC!”

 James “Jim” Bridger was born on March 17, 1804, in Richmond, Virginia, and after a lifetime of exploring the West, died on July 17, 1881, outside Kansas City, Missouri. Of the scouts, explorers, mountain men, and trappers who pioneered the Western United States during the decades between 1820 and 1850, he is among the most prominent. His family was of English ancestry and had been in North America since the early colonial period.

During the fall and winter of 1824, when Bridger was only 20 years old, he was part of a fur-trapping party in what is now Utah. Among the group there was disagreement as to where the Bear River ended, and Bridger took it upon himself to solve the mystery. He constructed a bu alo-skin “bullboat” and set on a wild ride down the Bear River, eventually entering a large body of water. According to the accepted story, upon bending to drink from the lake, he found the water to be salty and exclaimed, “Hell, we’re on the shores of the Pacific!”

Bridger had discovered the Great Salt Lake of present-day Utah. However, it is also historically noted that others—besides Bridger, and at various times—claimed to have discovered the lake, including Étienne Provost, Jedediah Smith, and Peter Skene Ogden.

For more information, see the Historical Controversy