Although he never settled in California, renowned mountain man and fur trapper Jedediah Strong Smith explored many regions of the state in the 1820s, opening new paths in the interior plus other trails leading north to Oregon Territory, and
Companies of American fur trappers were the trail blazers for subsequent explorers, gold rushers and settlers. Caught in the spell of a wild, free life, they were wide-ranging rovers. Trapping parties setting out from Taos, New Mexico, might