# Jim Bridger

James Felix Bridger (March 17, 1804 – July 17, 1881) was an American mountain man, trapper, Army scout, and wilderness guide who explored and trapped in the Western United States in the first half of the 19th century. He was of English ancestry, and his family had been in North America since the early colonial period.Bridger was part of the second generation of American mountain men and pathfinders that followed the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804 and became well known for participating in numerous early expeditions into the western interior as well as mediating between Native American tribes and westward-migrating European-American settlers. By the end of his life, he had earned a reputation as one of the foremost frontiersmen in the American Old West.