Jim Bridger came west in 1822 in the fur trade, later became an expert on the land and its Indian peoples, established the Bridger Trail through the Big Horn Basin in 1864, and in his last frontier years served as an army scout with the Connor Expedition and at the Bozeman Trail forts until late 1867, returning in 1868 to help abandon the posts. John Bozeman left Georgia in 1860 for Colorado and then Montana, and in 1863 he and John Jacobs established the route that became known as the Bozeman Trail, an overland emigrant road linking the goldfields of southwestern Montana with the Oregon/California Trail along the Platte River by following ancient north-south paths long used by Native Americans. Bozeman led only one wagon train on the trail in 1864 and was killed by Indians in Montana in 1867, leaving his name to the town of Bozeman and the trail. Elsa Spear Byron, born in 1896, spent her life preserving the history of the American West, especially the Bozeman Trail and Goose Creek, through research, writing, and photography, and died in 1992. In the mid 1800s the Goose Creek Valley was open country used by Northern Plains tribes and a few trappers and traders along old routes beside the Big Horn Mountains, where Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, and Shoshone hunted bison and fought for dominance. Emigrant travel on the new trail alarmed the Lakota and their Cheyenne and Arapaho allies, who sought to protect this hunting ground after seeing the damage caused along the Oregon/California Trail, and clashes there and warfare along the Platte drew the United States Army into the conflict. In 1865 the Connor Expedition attacked an Arapaho village on the Tongue River near present-day Ranchester, and in 1866 the Army built Forts Reno, Phil Kearny, and C.F. Smith along the trail, beginning Red Cloud’s War, which lasted until 1868. The forts were repeatedly attacked, especially Fort Phil Kearny, and major fighting included the Fetterman Fight on December 21, 1866, the Wagon Box Fight on August 2, 1867, and the Hayfield Fight on August 1, 1867. The tribes won the war, but the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 closed the Bozeman Trail, ordered the forts abandoned, declared the land between the Black Hills and the Big Horns unceded Indian territory, and assigned the Lakota and other tribes to reservations, laying the groundwork for later conflict. Native Americans continued to roam and hunt in the Goose Creek Valley for eight more years, but in December 1875 the U.S. government ordered all tribes to leave the unceded territory and return to reservations by January 31, 1876, with those remaining outside to be treated as hostile. That order, together with the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, brought renewed war, and General George Crook marched up the Bozeman Trail, camped near the meeting of Big and Little Goose Creeks at present-day Sheridan, and moved north until Indian forces stopped him at the Battle of the Rosebud on June 17. A week later Indian forces defeated Custer at the Little Bighorn, but the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho were eventually defeated in campaigns the following winter and forced onto reservations, opening the valley to settlement. Buffalo was founded in 1877 near Fort McKinney, Big Horn in 1881, and Sheridan in 1882, while ranching, farming, coal mining, the railroad’s arrival in Sheridan in 1892, and Fort Mackenzie in 1899 helped expand the local economy. Agriculture, coal mining, the railroad, the Veterans Administration Hospital at Fort Mackenzie, and tourism later became major occupations in the Goose Creek Valley.