Re: MtMan-List: Reading Material

["S.M.Despain-1" <sdespain@ou.edu>]

SWcushing@aol.com wrote:
> 
> Ho the list.
> I am planning, already, for a long wet winter here in the NW and would like a
> list of the top five "must read" books on Mountain Men and the Fur Trade. I've
> read Bridger, Osborne Russell, Bonneville, Playboy, Meek, and Parkman to
> mention a few.... Will be interesting to see how the "top five" develops.
> Steve
> 


Steve: 

Books on the mountian men I would recomend.

	For short biography see LeRoy Hafen and Harvey L. Carter two books by
Nebraska Press derived from Hafen's Mountian Man and the Fur Trade (10
vols.). Also I did one with the Hafen series but focusing on the
Southwest fur trade titled Fur Trappers and Traders of the Far Southwest
by Utah State University Press.  Janet Lecompt has recently done one of
this ilk on just French fur men in the Far West.
	Other works would be Fred Gowans, Rocky Mountain Rendezvous; David J.
Weber, The Taos Trappers; Dale Morgan, Jedediah Smith and the Opening of
the West is the best biography in my opinion; the next best would be
Harvey L. Carter, Dear Old Kit. Stay away from anything Stanley Vestal
wrote, too much fillagree.

These are just off the top of my head, good reading.

Matt Despain