Jim Bridger, Mountain Man

The petrified bird was a joke, but the forest was real. On Specimen Ridge above the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone, Eocene trees still stand upright where they grew, and the botanist Frank Knowlton argued that they were forests petrified in place; nearly 150 species of fossil plants have since come out of the park. Bridger may well have seen petrified trees near Tower Junction. His name for tall talk grew until stories others made up were credited to him. A metal statue of Bridger stands beside this board, a plaque on its column.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Smith Mine — 16 mi
  Rusting buildings beside the highway, all that is left of the mine where Montana's worst coal disaster emptied a valley.
• Chief Plenty Coups State Park — 20 mi
  The log house of the last traditional chief of the Apsáalooke, given in 1928 as a park for Crow and white people together.

More markers nearby

• A Trail Woefully Hard to Travel: The Bridger Cut-Off — 0.8 mi
• The Pryor Mountains and Raptor Country — 3.2 mi
• The Pryor Mountains — 3.2 mi
• A Monument to Carbon County: The Fromberg Bridge — 7.0 mi