John Colter’s Mark

A Mountain Man’s Unintentional Monument”

John Colter can arguably be classed as the first memorable mountain man through his adventurous explorations of the Yellowstone region by himself. A member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, he accompanied the famed explorers during their three-year journey, from 1803 to 1806.  

By Dave Vickery 

A secluded and quiet grassy draw sprinkled with ponderosa pine and sandstone boulders near the confluence of the Bighorn and Yellowstone rivers holds mute physical testimony to one of the first Montana mountain man.  By carving his name on the side of a large sandstone rock in 1810, John Colter may have unintentionally created his own monument.  

Colter may have made his mark as a gesture of farewell to the Rocky Mountains as he left the area in 1810 never to return.  He died a few years later in Missouri, leaving very little written record of his incredible years in the Western frontier.  His solo journey through the Greater Yellowstone region in the middle of winter in 1807-08 is often classified as one of the most remarkable human odysseys in the history of the fur trade era.   

His engraving is adjacent to the carved name of famed fur trader Manuel Lisa.  

The names on the rock have not been authenticated by historians, but evidence strongly leads to a conclusion that both are real.  According to an archeologist who looked at the site, the names and their location appear to be consistent with the historical record of Manuel Lisa and John Colter and are close to where Lisa’s fur trading outpost near “Fort Raymond” was constructed in the fall of 1807.    

Weathering on the signatures appears to be consistent with the passage of over 200 years, and the date is consistent with that known for both Lisa at Fort Raymond, and Colter’s home base during his last year in the mountains. 

John Colter can arguably be classed as the first memorable mountain man through his adventurous explorations of the Yellowstone region by himself. A member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, he accompanied the famed explorers during their three-year journey, from 1803 to 1806.  

In August 1806, as the Lewis and Clark Expedition descended the Missouri River, they met two Illinois fur trappers, Joseph Dickson and Forrest Hancock, near the Mandan Indian villages in present-day North Dakota.  Colter joined them and led them to the Clark’s Fork of the Yellowstone River, where they spent the winter near the mouth of the Clark’s Fork Canyon in what is now Wyoming.

His decision makes clear that Colter had no fear of facing the wilderness life with very little in the way of equipment. He was at home in an inhospitable wilderness setting and had confidence in his survival skills and ability to live and succeed under arduous conditions. Perhaps he just loved the sense of freedom, adventure and challenge of the frontier.

Colter left this partnership in the spring of 1807, and once again headed downriver toward civilization. Near the mouth of the Platte River close to present-day Council Bluffs, Iowa, he met the Missouri Fur Trading Company expedition under the leadership of Manuel Lisa. Lisa recognized Colter as a priceless encyclopedia of the Yellowstone-Missouri region, with his years of experience and knowledge of the land, rivers and Indian tribes. He prevailed on Colter to turn back west a second time to guide the fur expedition to the mountains. It was during this second return with Lisa that much of the Colter legend was built.      

Colter led Lisa to the confluence of the Bighorn and Yellowstone rivers in present-day eastern Montana where Fort Raymond was built in late summer or early fall of 1807. It is likely that the choice of the site was made largely on the advice of Colter in order to avoid the Blackfeet Indians on the Upper Missouri, and to establish trade with local tribes and using the Yellowstone country as a hunting ground.  

Manuel Lisa’s signature is dated 1807. Lisa may have carved his name and date not so much as a remembrance, but potentially to lay claim to Fort Raymond’s location and regional trading rights. Economic potential from fur trade was of intense interest in St. Louis following the return of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, in 1806, and Lisa, known as a shrewd businessman, planned to take early advantage of opportunities.

With the fort established, Lisa assigned Colter the task of finding Crow Indians to inform them of the trading post and encourage them to bring pelts and furs to it for trade. Legend has it that during the winter of 1807-08, Colter journeyed across unmapped wilderness on foot, with a muzzle-loading rifle, knife and small pack on his back. He traced a route up the Yellowstone River and Pryor Creek, and across Pryor Gap into the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming. Venturing into the Sunlight Basin, he arrived at the present site of Cody, Wyoming, then trekked across unexplored wilderness, arriving near present-day Jackson Hole. When returning, he made his way through unknown mountain passes to discover what became known as “Colter’s Hell” when he described geysers, thermal springs and boiling mud pots that are now part of Yellowstone National Park.

Colter journeyed across unmapped wilderness on foot, with a muzzle-loading rifle, knife and small pack on his back.

After his return to Lisa’s fort, Colter remained in the frontier for two years, making trips up the Yellowstone River and over the Bozeman Pass to the Three Forks region. In 1808 near the Jefferson River, Colter was captured by Blackfeet Indians and made his dramatic cross-country escape in a race for his life, the event above all that made him a legend of early Western history.

After another expedition to the Three Forks in early 1810 with a party of Missouri Fur Company trappers, Colter decided to leave the mountains for good upon surviving another battle with Blackfeet Indians. Returning to Lisa’s fort, it is plausible he carved his name and year into the sandstone rock alongside that of Lisa, perhaps as an unconscious gesture to leave evidence of his life in the Rocky Mountains.  

After he returned to St. Louis in the fall of 1810, Colter met with Capt. William Clark, who was compiling a written record of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Clark created a manuscript map, based on Colter’s journey, and included it in the 1814 publication of the history of the expedition.

Colter established a farm in Franklin County, Missouri, married and started a family.  His domestic life was destined to be short, though. In 1813 he developed jaundice and died that November. He was buried near his farm. Whether or not his grave was marked there became moot, since the graveyard was destroyed by railroad construction in the 1920s.  

Other than Colter’s name carved onto a sandstone boulder in a quiet ranch coulee near the mouth of Montana’s Bighorn River, there is no physical evidence of the adventures and rugged wilderness life of the mountain man. Perhaps that is as Colter would wish it.