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"Hurra Hurra Hurra - There's My Home At Last"

Fort Bridger to the Great Salt Lake

. . . When we turned round the hill to the right and came in full view of the Salt Lake in the distance, with its bold hills on its islands towering up in bold relief behind the silvery lake. A very extensive valley burst upon our view, dotted in 3 or 4 places with timber. . . . I could not help shouting "hurra, hurra, hurra, there's my home at last." The sky is very clear, the air delightful and all together looks glorious.1

The final stage of the pioneer company's march, from Fort Bridger to the Salt Lake, was the most difficult of the entire journey and also the most rewarding. It began in murmur and complaint but ended in triumph and discovery, although not before they had endured more sickness and suffering than yet experienced on the trail. There would be one last obstacle more formidable than the Rockies, one final test of their faith and endurance, this time in the form of the smallest of enemies, the active agent of a serious disease that hindered their progress as no mountain pass ever could.

Because they were running two weeks behind their appointed schedule, their stay at Fort Bridger, consisting then of nothing but "two or three rudely constructed log cabins," was as brief as possible.2 They arrived in the afternoon of 7 July and left only 40 hours later. Their time was used for essential blacksmith repairs, mapping the route to the Great Basin, trading Fort Bridger, from a sketch by Frederick Piercy for buckskin and horses, and as time would tell, insufficient rest and recuperation. Used more as a trading lodge with the Snake Indians than as a fort, Bridger's trading post was "a shabby concern" built of poles and dogwood. It was situated on a beautiful site on the Black Fork of Green River, with trout-laden streams running in several channels. George A. Smith described it as consisting of "two long, low, rough cabins built in the form of an L with a small enclosure for stock built of upright poles. The surrounding country was beautiful, but the fort itself was an unpretentious place."3

Some still found time for diversion. None enjoyed the respite more than Wilford Woodruff. "The calculation was to spend the day at the fort," he recalled. So,

as soon as I got my breakfast I rigged up my trout rod that I had brought with me from Liverpool, fixed my reel, line, and artificial fly and went to one of the brooks close by camp to try my luck catching trout. The man at the fort said there were but very few trout in the streams. And a good many of the brethren were already at the creeks with their rods and lines trying their skill baiting with fresh meat and grasshoppers, but no one seemed to catch any. I went and flung my fly, . . . it being the first time that I ever tried the artificial fly in America, or ever saw it tried. I watched it as it floated upon the water with as much intense interest as [Benjamin] Franklin did his kite. . . . And as Franklin received great joy when he saw electricity or lightning descend on his kite string, in like manner was I highly gratified when I saw the nimble trout dart my fly, hook himself, and run away with the line.