Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/14

 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 Fort Hall was located. 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 Boise river a short distance above the city of Boise as it is today. The other prong continued on the south side of the 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 well-worn highways in their ubiquitous wanderings through the mountains, encountered trails which existed in countless numbers and which were almost everywhere in evidence. For this reason it was found necessary, wherever possible, to employ Indian guides. How long these pre-historic trails had been in existence before the advent of the white man will be touched upon later.

We learn from the pen of Mr. T. C. Elliott that David Thompson, in the summer of 1809, descended the Kootenay river as far as the present site of Bonner's Ferry where he 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 vicinity of the present town of Hope. Events leading to a 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 had already associated himself with Manuel Lisa, of St. Louis, and they were alert to avail them-