Jedediah S Smith was a great mountain man, fur trapper, and a great leader. He was born in June 24, 1798, Bainbridge, N.Y and died May 27, 1831, near Cimarron River. Smith made his first trip west while still in his teens. In 1822 he joined a fur-trading expedition to the rocky mountains and continued in the Rocky Mountain trade business.

In 1824 Smith belonged to the party that reestablish the South Pass, a passage to the North west through Wyoming. Two years later, he and a trading party left Great Salt Lake and crossed the Mojave Desert to southern California, becoming the first Americans to enter California from the east.

Blocked by the weird Mexican governor of California, Smith altered his plan to go north into Oregon. Instead, in