The Naming of a Lake

Stewart's 1843 return has been called the first dude trip in the West. William Sublette's journal counted 93 in the party, more than half of them hired men belonging to Sir William, the rest gentlemen come for pleasure or for health: doctors, lawyers, botanists and, in his spelling, bugg ketchers. Among them was the newspaperman Matthew C. Field. Sublette, the co-host, was already ill, a hero of Washington Irving's western books; he died two years later, in July 1845, in Pittsburgh on his way to Washington.

What the plaque says

The Naming of a Lake Sir William Drummond Stewart of Scotland can be called Wyoming's first tourist. Stewart attended every summer rendezvous from 1833 to 1838, during the heyday of the mountain man fur trade. Four of those gatherings took place nearby, at the confluence of Horse Creek and the Green River. This magnificent glacier-carved lake must have been one of Stewart's favorite spots. Artist Alfred Jacob Miller accompanied Stewart in 1837 and painted the first pictures of the area, including the mountain lakes that inspired both men. Although the last rendezvous was held in 1840, Stewart and mountain man William Sublette returned one more time in 1843. They camped here for 10 days in August, visited old Shoshone Indian and trapper friends, and raced horses on a flat to the west near the New Fork River. Stewart and a small party floated to the head of the lake in an India-rubber boat brought especially for that purpose. At that time this lake was called both Stewart's Lake and Loch Drummond. The year before, in 1842, explorer John C. Fremont had made his first trip west, and guided by Kit Carson, climbed what he thought was the highest summit in the Wind River Mountains. This peak, which towers over the lake, was later named Fremont's Peak. Long after, not knowing that the lake had already been named in honor of Stewart, Fremont supporters named it Fremont Lake even though John C. Fremont had never actually been there. At 9 miles long, 1 mile wide and 600 feet deep, Fremont Lake is the second largest natural lake in Wyoming. Sublette County Museum Board

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of the Mountain Man — 1.9 mi
  Six fur-trade rendezvous met near here on the Green; the only artist who ever saw one, Alfred Jacob Miller, came in 1837.

More markers nearby

• A Pause on a Journey — 2.5 mi
• Rendezvous - Birth of an Empire — 7.7 mi
• First Holy Mass in Wyoming — 11 mi
• Pinckney W. Sublette — 11 mi