To the Shoshone Indian, this river was the Seeds-Kee-Dee Agie (Prairie Chicken River). On Sept. 16 1811, the Astorians near its headwaters termed it the Spanish River. To the Spaniards, far to the south, it was the Rio Verde (Green River). Jedediah Smith and his Mountain Men, making the first westward crossing of the south Pass by white men, camped near here Mar. 19, 1824 on the Seeds-Kee-Dee. They trapped the river and its forks which were named for them: LaBarge, Ham's, Black's, Smith's, Henry's, etc. These waters were considered as the greatest beaver waters ever known. The upper reaches became the center of the fur trade and the Rendezvous. In 1841 the fur trade ceased, but the trappers had blazed the trails for the emigrants. For forty-nine years over the Oregon and California trails, thousands of emigrants going west, crossed these waters nearby. The many that drowned and died were buried along the river banks. The Mountain Men guided, manned the ferries and traded with the emigrants. Graves, marked and unmarked, names cut in the rocks and wagon trails worn deep remain with the legend and lore of a great river of the West, The Green.
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