Sun River Crossing
Posted by: 
BruceS
N 47° 32.256 W 111° 42.843
12T E 446261 N 5265154
Historical marker commemorating the importance of the crossing and bridges over the Sun River in the vicinity of the marker.
Waymark Code: WM23GA
Location: Montana, United States
Date Posted: 08/29/2007
Views: 39
Sun River Crossing
This Sun River Bridge is situated on a crossing that has been used since
prehistoric times. when Captain John Mullan built a military road through
Montana in the early 1860s, he utilized portions of already existing trails
employed by generations of Native Americans. Although Mullan surveyed the
Sun River Crossing in 1862, it was already the site of the Blackfeet Indian
Government Farm, located about one - half mile north of the existing bridge.
Electra Bryan married Bannack sheriff and outlaw Henry Plummer at the farm in
1863. John Healy established a trading post near here in the early 1860s
to exchange furs and pelts with his neighbors, the Blackfeet. You can
still see a portion of Healy's trading post just east of the bridge on your
left. The construction of the Mullan Road and the discovery of gold in
southwestern Montana over the next several years made Sun River Crossing an
important place in the states early history. Healy and pioneer John
Largent built a toll bridge at the approximate site of the existing bridge in
1867. Founded by Largent in 1867, the community of Sun River was ideally
situated to take advantage of the heavy traffic between the steamboat port of
Fort Benton, nearby Fort Shaw, the gold camps of the Gallatin Valley.
Realizing the potential for quick money, enterprising individuals built two
other toll bridges south of the existing bridge. The arrival of the
railroad in Great Falls in 1886 did not diminish the importance of the Sun River
Crossing and its continued to thrive until after 1900. Today, the
community and the bridge (in its fourth incarnation) attest to the strategic
importance of this place to the history of Montana. ~ text of marker