On September 10th 1880, Victor Arland and John F. Corbett set up the first mercantile establishment in the Big Horn Basin on the Indian Trace that follows Trail Creek. Looking to the cattlemen for business, they moved to Cottonwood Creek in 1883, then to Meeteetse Creek in 1884 where Arland, their final trading post, was established.
Corbett, doing the freighting from Billings for company enterprises, set up a way station in the river bottom where the freight road crossed the Stinking Water River—later renamed the Shoshone. A bridge, the first of five to span the river at this point, was constructed in 1883 at a cost of $5,000 raised by subscription from cattlemen, the Northern Pacific Railroad and Billings merchants.
Accommodations provided were a small store, a saloon and overnight lodging. The post office was established in 1885 with Corbett the postmaster. It was a gathering place and social center long before Cody came into existence twelve years later.
Corbett died in bed at his Meeteetse home December 15, 1910. His partner, Arland, went to his reward in more traditional style—dying with his boots on. In December, 1889, a shot fired through a saloon window in Red Lodge, Montana, killed him while he is playing poker.
The name of Corbett lingers on but the need for "Corbett's Shebang" in the river bottom ended with the arrival of the railroad in November 1901.
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