In the southwest, the mountain man maintained his lifestyle of self sufficiency and great hunting and trapping accomplishments in the wild reaches of what is now the Gila National Forest. Full of the zest for adventure and freedom from societal conventions, mountain men came from the east and midwest and rode the trains to the far reaches of southwest New Mexico in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.

Originally, the fur trade attracted these adventurers to the region as the supply of beaver gave out in other areas [8]. James Kirker (1793-1853) arrived in a trapper’s headquarters at the Santa Rita copper mines in 1826, and remained for over a decade, trapping the Gila and acting as a guard, scout and a supervisor at the mines. He was known to go off into the wilderness trapping beaver for over a year at a time without emerging back to civilization. Ben Lilly (1856-1936), hunter and woodsman, came to southwest New Mexico from Alabama by way of Louisiana in 1911. While in Louisiana he had once acted as guide to Teddy Roosevelt. Lilly was a famous hunter in his time, remarkable for his feats of endurance, tracking mountain lions and bears in the Gila National Forest into the 1930’s. Lilly is credited with killing the last Grizzly Bear in the Gila Forest. In those years of following his hounds on foot, he came to know the entire upper Gila watershed as no one else, then or since. His efforts helped ranchers protect their cattle during the Depression. He died in 1936, age 80. In 1947 those who knew and admired him installed a plaque in his memory overlooking Bear Creek, just north of Pinos Altos (MP10).