The mountain men have engraved their names on the topography of the West with such place names as Scotts Bluff, Jackson Hole, Colter Bay, Bridger Pass, Sublette County, Provo, Ogden, and Carson City which forever remind us of these colorful figures with seven-league boots who spearheaded the invasion of the West. _The First Wagons_ In 1827 Ashley had sent a wheeled cannon up the Platte route to impress the Indians at Great Salt Lake. However, the first bona fide wagons on the Oregon Trail were those of the Smith-Jackson-Sublette caravan of 1830, headed for the rendezvous scheduled in the Wind River Valley, near present Lander. In a famous letter to Secretary of War Eaton, the partners reported a caravan of ten wagons, drawn by five mules each, and two dearborns, drawn by one mule each ... eighty-one men in company, all mounted on mules.... For our support, at leaving the Missouri settlements, until we should get into the buffalo country, we drove twelve head of cattle, beside a milk cow.... We began to fall in with the buffaloes on the Platte, about three hundred and fifty miles from the white settlements; and from that time lived on buffaloes, the quantity being infinitely beyond what we needed.... The country being almost all open, level, and prairie, the chief obstructions were ravines and creeks, the banks of which required cutting down, and for this purpose a few pioneers were generally kept ahead of the caravan. This is the first time that wagons ever went to the Rocky mountains; and the ease and safety with which it was done prove the facility of communicating over land with the Pacific ocean. At Wind River the parties sold their interest to another group of seasoned trappers—Fitzpatrick, Bridger, Fraeb, Gervais, and Milton Sublette. Thus far the Rocky Mountain Fur Company had a monopoly of the choice beaver country, except for occasional brushes with the Hudson’s Bay Company in the Snake River country. Now an ominous rival presented itself, Astor’s powerful American Fur Company, which sought to regain the trading empire lost during the War of 1812. In a brief time Astor’s company would outmaneuver the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, absorb its leaders, and take over the monopoly. But first there would be fierce competition. In the vanguard of this invasion came a pack train headed by Joseph Robidoux and William Vanderburgh. They passed Scotts Bluff on May 27, on the north side of the river, just a few days behind their rivals. Robidoux and Vanderburgh’s adventures have been chronicled by Warren Ferris.