Fort Bonneville was established in 1832, on Green River near the mouth of Horse Creek by Captain Benjamin L. E. Bonneville of the United States Army.
Bonneville, of French birth, was brought to the United States by his parents while he was still a child. As an adult, he served in the regular United States Army for fifteen years. At the time of his gaining a leave-of-absence from the army, he was thirty-six years of age. Bonneville's aim in traveling west, as he explained to mountain man and fur trapper Joseph R. Walker where they met in 1830, at Fort Gibson in the Indian Territory, was simple. Bonneville desired to lead a privately financed trapping expedition westward. His reason for telling Walker of his plans was that he needed to enlist an experienced mountaineer to lead the company of men that Bonneville, with Walker's assistance, would recruit.
In early August of 1832, Bonneville's company of 150 men, packhorses, mules, and a collection of twenty covered wagons drawn by oxen reached their proposed location on Green River. It was here that Bonneville decided to erect his fort, though Walker expressed several objections to the location. On one point Walker did agree with Bonneville, that this was an excellent place for a fort because of the fur trapping rendezvous that were often held here. But on the other side of the agreement he pointed out that rendezvous was yearly alternated to other locations as well. Walker also pointed out that the valley in question offered no shelter from winter storms and, besides, trapping parties varied their locations to winter-over depending on where the game and best forage for horses and mules was located.
In other words, even if Bonneville did build a fort here he could still go through an entire winter with no customers if the mountain men wintered somewhere else. And then, on top of that if, come summer, rendezvous was held somewhere else other than on Green River, Bonneville would still be out in the cold, so to speak.
Bonneville, not budging, went ahead with the building of Fort Bonneville. And, when completed, it was an impressive site. It was said to be "a formidable stockade of logs set firmly in the ground." It rose fifteen in height with two blockhouses located at two opposite corners. Surrounding it was ample grass to feed any stock. It was impressive, and when it was completed the trappers laughed at it.
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