Shields River Valley

The man in the river's name was the expedition's smith. John Shields, born in Virginia in 1769, was among its oldest men, and at Fort Mandan in the winter of 1804-05 his forge kept the party fed: Mandan and Hidatsa people traded corn for mended tools and for war axes made to their own design. He trapped in Missouri after the return, settled in Indiana by 1807 and died there in December 1809. Beside this board stands Gary Kerby's 2006 mountain-man sculpture, Thunder Jack, with a bronze dedication of its own.

What the plaque says

Shields River Valley This river was named by Captain William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in honor of John Shields, a member of the party. Captain Clark and his men, guided by Sacajawea, the Shoshone woman, camped at the mouth of the river July 15, 1806, while exploring the Yellowstone on their return trip from the coast. Jim Bridger, famous trapper, trader and scout, guided emigrant wagon trains from Fort Laramie, Wyoming, to Virginia City, Montana, in the 1860s, crossing hostile Indian country via the Bonanza Trail. Bridger's route came up this valley from the Yellowstone, followed up Brackett Creek, crossed the divide west of here to strike Bridger Creek and thence down the latter to the Gallatin Valley.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Crazy Mountains — 19 mi
  Awaxaawippíia, the Apsáalooke's holiest mountains, where young Plenty Coups saw the end of the buffalo.
• Bozeman Trail at Bozeman Pass — 24 mi
  The pass at the end of a gold-rush shortcut through other nations' hunting ground, the one road a Native war closed.
• Museum of the Rockies — 30 mi
  The bronze T. rex on the lawn is a cast of the one that went to Washington.

More markers nearby

• Bozeman Pass — 24 mi
• The Bozeman Trail — 28 mi