Yellowstone Park Prismatic Stream
Was Mountain Man Jim Bridger A Liar?
I was raised on a ranch. I miss the early morning standing around the fire with the crew. We’d throw a few logs into an oil barrel. Then, we’d talk and visit some before going out to work. This included a few stretchers. Tall tales formed a kind of entertainment, Jim Bridger style.
In the Old West, cowboys on the trail told stretchers too. Around the campfire at night, they had no radio or TV or newspaper. Nothing to read. Only these same guys on the trail to see for months. So, they invented stories.
The Best of the Old West
One of the best at telling stretchers was mountain man, Jim Bridger. He claimed that when he told the truth, no one believed him. So, he figured he might as well tell stretchers. After he’d visited Yellowstone, he returned to St. Louis to tell what he saw. In response, the St. Louis newspaper had a headline, “Jim Bridger Is A Liar.” Bridger decided to stretch things a bit and really tell some good stories.
Back East they had a place called Echo Point. You could yell, “Hello!” and pretty soon, you heard the echo. Bridger explained about out West Yellowstone’s huge Echo Canyon. When he camped there, at night he’d go to the canyon edge and holler, “Bridger, time to get up!” Then he’d go to bed. He claimed that eight hours later, rolling up the canyon, the echo returned, “Bridger, time to get up!”
Obsidian Stone Rock
Obsidian Mountain Mirage
Another time, Jim Bridger talked about hunting among obsidian mountains. On the upper part of a river, he entered a clearing. Across the meadow he spotted a big bull elk. Easy shot. He placed the rifle to his shoulder and squeezed off a round. It blasted away. But he missed.
He couldn’t believe it. Not more than 50 or 75 yards away, the elk didn’t move, jump, run, or anything. He got so mad, he loaded and shot again. And still missed. He thought maybe the elk was dead. Rushing toward it, he determined to hit the animal on the side of the head. He took twenty steps and rammed smack into a clear, glass obsidian mountain. The elk stood twenty-five miles away.
Other Yellowstone Tales
Bridge also told about the hot water boiling up out of the ground in Yellowstone. He said sometimes they’d catch a mess of fish in the cold lake. Then walk over to dip the whole string in the boiling water to cook them. But in the right places, you could stand on the bank of Yellowstone Lake and catch a fish. Then, pull it up and just turn around to lower the fish into one of the close hot spots.
But then he discovered the very best place to fish. One of those boiling pots flowed right into the lake. He’d get right next to it and drop his line through the hot water and down into the cold part. When he pulled up the caught fish real slow, it would be cooked to perfection when it came out.
Old West characters loved telling stretchers for entertainment. No one believed them. Still it was important then, as now, to discern fact from fiction, truth from lies. Find out more about stretchers in the audio podcast below.
Stephen Bly
Copyright©1993
Yellowstone Prismatic Spring Image by Mike Goad from Pixabay
Obsidian Stone Rock Image by Venita Oberholster from Pixabay
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“Stretchers” audio podcast by award-winning western author Stephen Bly. Sponsored by BlyBooks.com Legacy Series.
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