Show It has been years since Ach f ho OX i 1 It has been years ago that 1 William H. Ashley camped on Green River in the vicinity of Ashley 1 Creek and Ashley Valey will forever perpetuate the name of this courageous pioneer explorer of the Ashley visited brown's Hole in the northeastern corner of Utah in His is the first recorded visit to the sec- tion although there is a probability that other trappers were catchine beaver Basin streams a few years An figure In the early days of the Ashley was with An- drew founder of the tion that later became known as the Rocky Mountain Fur The two men brought into the west a group of young men whose names still hold important places in the history of the taming of the Among these men were William L. Jim Jedediah S. James P. Etienna Robert Louis Vas- quez and Thomas For the first two or three years after followed the streams where beavers liv ed in great strayed into nor- Ashley was one of the first to substitute the rendezvous for the per- manent posts used by the fur com- pers started out in quest of furs they separated into small groups with in- to assemble for midwinter encampment in the summer at a plies into the area established a trail He left Missouri in with 23 50 pack a wagon and teams and followed up the Platte River along a route previously traveled by Major At the mouth of the Cache la Padre he left the South Platte and followed its western Skirting the Medicine Bow history he turned westward to the Green Here directions and Ashley with six men floated down the Green River on a tour Wyoming-Utah line he selected and marked the place of general and continued down the camping near the present town of It was in this manner he reach- ed Brown's Hole and made the earliest visit to northwestern After completing exploration work along the Green risking his life floating through the that mark the Ashley and his party returned to the scene of the rendezvous in Brown's It was a great Trappers and Indians attracted by the celebration moved in teepees and joined the sessions and each trapper tried to outdo the other in experiences of the past After the rendezvous was com- they separated to take up their tasks of the valuable Ceaver along the lonesome streams of the Rocky Mountains and the Indians ed back to their accustomed It was not long until Ashley retired from a rich but the fur carried on by Several hundred men were employed in the trapping and trading of furs and numerous parties of them probably rov- ed along Ashley Green River and Yampa the Elk River and the various other streams of nor- Colorado and the Uintah Basin where beaver lived by the hun- Few of these left of the r but it is certain that a of trappers led by Henry and Jean Baptists crossed through the Basin and North Park and in the yampa River in 1830 I |