MILES CANNON

6

He appears to have established his trading mission on the Uintah a short distance above its confluence with the Du Chesne. The fort is said to have been destroyed by the Utah Indians in 1844. The old trails which in later years became known as the Oregon Trail appear to have joined with the Southern trail in the Bridger bottoms and continued with it Snake river some five miles above where Here the Columbia river trail branched off and followed the left bank of the Snake to Three Islands, near the present town of Glenn's Ferry, Idaho, where one prong crossed the Snake and followed the mountain slopes to

to the

bend

in the

Fort Hall was located.

Boise river a short distance above the city of Boise as

it

is

The other prong continued on the south side of the today. river and again joined the northern arm, after the latter had re-crossed the Snake at the mouth of the Boise, at a point about six miles south-east of the present town of Vale, Oregon. It may be pertinent here to observe that early travelers, while they almost invariably availed themselves of these wellworn highways in their ubiquitous wanderings through the in countless

num-

bers and which were almost everywhere in evidence.

For

mountains, encountered this reason

it

which existed

was found necessary, wherever

Indian guides.

How

in existence before the

upon

trails

possible, to

employ had been

long these pre-historic trails advent of the white man will be touched

later.

We

learn from the pen of Mr. T. C. Elliott that David in the summer of 1809, descended the Kootenay river as far as the present site of Bonner's Ferry where he

Thompson,

transferred his goods to pack animals and transported them over the "Lake Indian Road" to Lake Pend d' Oreille where,

on September the 10th of that year, he erected the first building in what is now the state of Idaho, the site being in the Events leading to a vicinity of the present town of Hope. knowledge of the great Snake river were now in the making.

Major Andrew Henry, a

tall,

slender

young man, with dark

hair and light blue eyes hadi already associated himself with Manuel Lisa, of St. Louis, and they were alert to avail them-