Dr. Barton H. Barbour is a leading reserach scholar of the North American Fur Trade. Barbour specializes in early American history at Boise State University, where he teaches courses on the American West, North American Exploration, Native American History and US Indian Policy, and Colonial America. He came to Boise State in 2001 with a Ph.D. in United States History from the University of New Mexico (1993), following a number of years of work with local, state, and federal museums, and four years as a research historian at the National Park Service's regional offices at Santa Fe, New Mexico. His dissertation, entitled "Fort Union and the Fur Trade of the Upper Missouri, 1830-1867" was published by the University of Oklahoma Press in 2001, and he continues to explore the culture of fur traders and mountain men, and the varied affects of the fur trade on various “frontiers” of society, ethnicity, business, law, and politics. His biography of early 19th century explorer and trapper Jedediah Smith (University of Oklahoma Press, 2010) was the culmination of ten years of research and travel. In 2010, Dr. Barbour was named a recipient of Boise State’s first Arts & Humanities Fellowship for the academic year 2010-2011, allowing him time and space to work on a book about the fur trade era at Fort Laramie, a major stop on the Oregon Trail. As a teacher, writer, and presenter, Dr. Barbour enjoys sharing his love of the American West and early North American history.
Books
Jedediah Smith: No Ordinary Mountain Man, Faculty Authored Books (2009)
An unvarnished picture of one of the West’s most complex characters
Mountain man and fur...
American West Chronicle (with Walter TK Nugent and William Francis Deverell), Faculty Authored Books (2007)
The American West Chronicle offers both scholarly and lay readers an attractive and useful companion...
Fort Union and the Upper Missouri Fur Trade, Faculty Authored Books (2001)
In this book, Barton Barbour presents the first comprehensive history of Fort Union, the nineteenth...
Reluctant Frontiersman: James Ross Larkin on the Santa Fe Trail, 1856-1857 (1990)
Memorandum book of James. R. Larkin of St. Louis, Missouri, published in cooperation with the...
Contributions to Books
Jedediah S. Smith and Marcus and Narcissa Whitman: Mountain Men and Missionaries in the Far West, Western Lives: A Biographical History of the American West (2004)
This article compares the experiences of missionaries and mountain men in the early years (1825-1848)...
The Fur Trade, The Atlas of U.S and Canadian Environmental History (2003)
This article summarizes three centuries of the North American Fur Trade. It is one of...
Kit Carson and the 'Americanization' of New Mexico, New Mexican Lives: Profiles and Historical Stories (2002)
This article appeared as a lead article in the New Mexico Historical Review, 77:2 (Spring...
Articles
Kit Carson and the “Americanization” of New Mexico, New Mexico Historical Review (2002)
This article appeared as a lead article in the New Mexico Historical Review, 77:2 (Spring...
Presentations
"Trapper and Mountain Man" Participant/Presenter at Annual “The Museum Comes to Life” Event, Idaho State Historical Society Museum (2010)
An Introduction to the Fur Trade at Fort William/Fort Laramie, 1834-1849, 175th Anniversary of the Founding of Fort William, Fort Laramie National Historic Site, National Park Service (2009)