Laserfiche WebLink
<br />0030H <br /> <br />Bro.....ns Park has had a colorful past. <br />complete with Indians, mountainmen. <br />cowboys, and outla.....s. <br /> <br />THE PAST <br /> <br />To the red man. the park was a shel- <br />tered wintertime haven where waterfowl. <br />sage grow-e. bear. deer, elk, bighorn sheep, and antelope were <br />plentiful. <br /> <br />Then came the hardy mountainmen seeking heaver pelts. From <br />1826 to 18-10. Browns Park wus the site for the greatest of all the <br />spring rendezvous staged by the fur companies. .Jim Bridger. Hill <br />Williams. Kit Carson. and other men famuus in American Legend <br />came here to sell their pelts and stuck up 011 pro\'h;ions. One of <br />these trappers. Haptbte Brown. a French Canadian working for the <br />Hudson Bay Compan.y, grew weary of his life of adventure and set. <br />tied down in the park. <br /> <br />~""" ." ~ <br />"_~: ,.41 .. .';. ":,. ;._. <br />....:. ~ ",. .' ...~ . <br />,..1-...- ....._ &"'.." . <br />-. -- <br /> <br /> <br />.' <br /> <br />~... <br />.' . <br />~. - . <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />....~j. <br /> <br />'. ~. <br /> <br />A few other ~cttler~ followNI. In 18:l7 they built an adobe cot- <br />tonwood log fort anti trading po.-.t for protection from the hostile <br />Blackfoot Indians_ It was named Fort Da\-y Crockett in honor of <br />the famou~ frontiersman killed one year earlier in the hh-toric <br />Rattle of the Alamo. But even thb mca~ure of ~afet.Y wa:, not <br />enouJ{h. In 1840, all white residents left. <br /> <br />For dccade~ only drifter~ came and went thruugh the park a~ <br />civilization crept westward. By the late 1800.s a large cattle indu~. <br />try had evolved in the vast open range of western Colorado and <br />Wyoming. Brownl" Park. an isolated pocket on the edge of thi~ <br />range. then became a han'n for bad men who preyed on the cattle <br />herds_ <br />