Before the white man came, this region was alive with beaver, otter and game and was disputed hunting territory among Indian tribes. Sacajawea, the Shoshone squaw who guided portions of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, was captured near here as a child during a battle between her people and the Minnetarees, and her memories of this country proved invaluable to the explorers. The Lewis and Clark Expedition, bound westward, encamped near here for a few days in the latter part of July 1805, and the following year Captain Clark and party returned on July 13, 1806, on their way to explore the Yellowstone River. In 1808 John Colter, a former member of the expedition and discoverer of Yellowstone Park, was trapping on a nearby stream when a band of Blackfeet captured him and killed his only companion. Stripped, given a head start, and ordered to run across a flat covered with prickly pear, Colter outran his pursuers over six miles, reached the timber along the Jefferson River, hid beneath a jam of driftwood in the stream, and after nightfall traveled east for seven days, weaponless, to Fort Lisa at the mouth of the Big Horn River. In 1810 the Missouri Fur Co. built a nearby fur trading post but abandoned it that fall because of Blackfeet hostility.