FORT BRIDGER — Growing from handful of tepees to second largest visitor event in Wyoming, the Fort Bridger Rendezvous turns the pages back on history as the event recreated scenes from the early 1800s.

The event depicts the time of the Rocky Mountain trappers who spent their lives in the rugged west surviving with skills they needed to live through the winter trapping furs. Furs were popular and beaver were plews or top dollar, just like money in the bank as the trappers turned their goods over for goods brought from the east so they could trap another season in the mountains.

Rendezvous or a French word for meeting, proved to be a place designated in the fall so the mountain men could get supplies and sell their furs. The Fort Bridger rendezvous is reminiscent of the trips west by entrepreneur William Ashley and the goods he carried for the mountain men. The fur companies thought it was better to keep the mountain men in the wilderness to trap instead of returning east for supplies.

The Fort Bridger Rendezvous and Black Powder shoot last weekend at the Fort Bridger State Site turned time back to the early 1800s as the Rendezvous recreates a slice of early American history.

Weather predictions were it was to be hot and dry with a possible smattering of rain showers on Monday, But that didn’t happen. It did cloud and threaten, but the weekend stayed dry. The major complaint of the mountain men and pilgrims, or tourists who attended the event, was it was so hot. But, in actuality, it wasn’t as hot as much of the summer has been.

Fort Bridger was a site of action with many grizzled buckskin clad mountain men, pioneer ladies, Native Americans and pilgrims or flatlanders (visitors) traversing the area.

As for the tepees in the primitive village, visitors were welcome, but they are told not to enter lodges unless the owner was there and asked them in. The heavy action, as usual, was on Traders Row where pre-1840 goods (replicas) were for sale. This included furs, beads, buckskins, knives, tomahawks, candles and much more. Some traders take a little stretch to make the era such as selling modern-day Mexican blankets, which started several years ago.

Also a prime part of the Rendezvous is the Native American dancers just north of the bandstand. The dancers presented various dances indicative of their tribes and danced twice a day.

The Fort Bridger Rendezvous recreates a time in the Rocky Mountain West when men lived by their wits spending the winter trapping beaver for the fashionable top hats worn by gentlemen in the east. When the top hats went out of style and the need for furs dwindled, many mountain men continued to live out their lives in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains. Others, like Jim Bridger, took a second life and did other things. Bridger is credited with creating a post on the Oregon Trail and other westward trails where travellers could get supplies for their journeys.

The Fort Bridger Rendezvous has grown from the handful of tepees, 13 on a cold, rainy, snowy weekend in 1972, to the second largest visitor event in Wyoming, only outdone as a visitor event by Cheyenne Frontier Days.

At this year’s Rendezvous the traffic was down on Friday, but proved to be a bumper crowd on Saturday as multitudes of people attended the Rendezvous.

Participants dress in pre-1840 attire and goods on Traders Row are to be pre-1840, as the event strives to replicate the early rendezvous and some of the trade goods. Mountain men with long scruffy beards stride across the grounds dressed in leathers and moccasins. Ladies dressed in skins or pioneer-type dresses are part of the mix. And soldiers, carrying the long barrel Flintlock rifles are also part of the scene.

On Sunday, the roar of the cannon shoot west of Fort Bridger punctuated the air. Other sounds during the Rendezvous included the roar of muskets, the incessant beat of the tom-toms during the Native American ceremonial dances and the thud as tomahawks and knives struck wood in the throwing contests.

The ‘Gray Beard’ run is aimed at the older mountain men who have reached their gray years. One of the fun games for the children, (even the older one who might not be children) is the candy cannon shoot north of the bandstand after the Native Americans have finished dancing. Three burly mountain men with three small cannons, light the cannons and the cannons blow out bags of candy which split and fill the air and the kids rush into to grab the treats off the ground.

Some burly mountain men were on hand to give primitive demonstrations such as lighting a fire with scraps of grass, beaver trapping, a lesson in Indian sign language and more.