The Bozeman Trail

The diarist this panel quotes was not in Bozeman's train. Abram H. Voorhees, born in 1824, set out from Mendon, Michigan, in 1864 and traveled with Allen Hurlbut's company, which started up the new road ahead of Bozeman's before Bozeman's train passed it. Some historians credit Hurlbut with pioneering most of that year's route. When Hurlbut and a party of prospectors split away in July, the rest elected Voorhees captain. His journal of the trip out and back is at Yale's Beinecke Library. A monument to Rev. J. F. Madson stands beside the panel.

What the plaque says

The Bozeman Trail The Bozeman Trail crossed the divide from Red Lodge Creek and descended a steep hillside to the Rosebud Valley one-half mile southeast of here. Jim Bridger opened the route through this area in June 1864, and three weeks later John Bozeman followed his route as he led the first train over the Bozeman Trail. Diarists often noted the steep descent to Rosebud Valley. Abram Voorhees wrote on July 24, 1864: "in afternoon we went down a long crooked & sideling hill, it was steep and rocky & the worst one to go down we have found." George W. Fox called it "the big hill"on August 27, 1866. From the base of the hill, the Bozeman Trail went down the east side of the valley to the Rosebud Creek crossing just below the confluence of Butcher and East and West Rosebud Creeks. The trail crossed at present Smith Bridge, two miles north of here, and then went northwest over hills to the Stillwater River crossing. In August 1866 Bridger led a large train down the east side of Rosebud Creek to a new crossing above its junction with the Stillwater River. This new route then went up the south side of the Stillwater to the earlier crossing, avoiding the hills.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Smith Mine — 24 mi
  Rusting buildings beside the highway, all that is left of the mine where Montana's worst coal disaster emptied a valley.

More markers nearby

• The Rosebud Agency — 1.3 mi
• Liver-Eating Johnston's Cabin — 21 mi
• Columbus — 21 mi
• The Great Inland Seaway — 21 mi