Jean “John” Baptiste Richard, an early trails entrepreneur who built the first successful bridge to span the North Platte River, was described by Francis Parkman as a “little, swarthy, black-eyed Frenchman who wore a frock of smoked deerskin ornamented with porcupine quills and leggings with long fringes down their sides”

He was born about 1810 in St. Charles, Missouri and was known as “Reshaw,” the French pronunciation of his last name. In the fall of 1852, Richard established a trading post several miles downriver of the Platte River crossing near present-day Casper, Wyoming. He built a bridge a little bit east of the Mormon Ferry by taking advantage of the traffic along the Oregon-California and Mormon Trails.

The bridge opened in 1853, and that year, traffic along the trails peaked when some 50,000 emigrants used the bridge. It became known as Reshaw’s Bridge and put the Mormon Ferry out of business.


Noted author Jefferson Glass takes us to “Reshaw’s Bridge and tells the tale of this Wyoming legend.

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