Jedediah Smith was one of the most famous trappers of the Rocky Mountain fur trade era. He came west with St. Louis trader William Ashley in 1822 and spent his first winter in Montana at the mouth of the Musselshell River about 100 miles northwest of here. Over the next decade, he trapped and explored the Great Plains and Rockies, re-discovered the South Pass in Wyoming in 1824, and established overland routes to California and Oregon. The trails he and his comrades blazed in the 1820s later served thousands of emigrants during the great overland migrations of the 1840s and 1850s. Smith also explored the upper Missouri River and became well acquainted with the Gallatin, Jefferson, and Madison rivers, and he worked through the Bitterroot, Big Hole, Clark Fork, and upper Flathead valleys. By 1828, he was part-owner of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, which employed traders and trappers including Jim Bridger, Bill Sublette, and Tom Fitzpatrick. Trade opportunities with the Crow Indians drew him to this region, and in July 1825 he and 20 other trappers floated the Bighorn and Yellowstone rivers to Fort Union at the confluence of the Missouri, reaching the fort in mid-August after an attack east of here by Blackfeet Indians. Comanche Indians killed Smith in what is now northern New Mexico in May 1831. Robert Meldrum, known as Round Iron, entered the fur trade in 1827 and went west as a clerk. The American Fur Company hired him in 1833 as a liaison with the Crow Indians, and after leaving the company in 1835 he lived with the Crow, took several wives, and rose to a position of influence in the tribe. His command of their language and his ties to the tribe made him valuable to the company when he returned to the fur trade in 1840. Over the years he managed several trading posts, including both Fort Sarpys, and he died at Fort Union in 1865.