For a while he confined himself to short journeys up the river as far as Grand Island where he met trappers coming from the mountains, and up the Loup and other tributaries trading with the Pawnees.

In September, 1827, he started from Council Bluffs, where he had a trading station, with a party of forty-five trappers for Salt Lake Valley. This was the first recorded time of his journeying above "the coast of the Platte,"

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

as the bluffs on either side of the river from Kearney west were afterwards named.

The original Council Bluffs were on the west side of the Missouri, and some twenty-five miles up the river from the present site of the modern city of that name. They were so named because of a famous council held there between the Indian tribes and Lewis and Clarke. About twenty trading posts had been established between these bluffs and the mouth of the Platte.

Pilcher followed the usual method and divided his party at the forks of the Platte, a small detachment crossing both forks of the river near that point, and going up the south side of the "South River." with instructions to join the main party in the vicinity of the "Southern Pass."

With thirty men he proceeded up the north side of the "North river," leaving the forks of the river on September 25th.

On the 27th he passed the Birdwood, and October 4th found them "opposite the low lying, fantastic bluffs, resembling citadels, castles, towers, and other works of man."