grattan fight

From 1850 to 1854, fur trader and interpreter Joseph Bissonette ran an independent trading post on the North Platte River, serving emigrants and Lakota bands alike. He later worked as a ferryman, bridge partner, and government official through the Oregon Trail’s final violent years.

For twelve years, John Baptiste Richard’s toll bridge and trading post near present-day Evansville was the upper North Platte’s busiest crossing, hosting emigrants, soldiers, and the Pony Express. Known to travelers as “Reshaw’s Bridge,” it gave way to Fort Caspar in 1865.