March 12 – On this day in history in 1854 Sir St. George Gore reached St. Louis and prepared for his journey into what would become Montana.  The 42-year old baronet had his valet, dog handler and a pack of 50 hunting hounds with him that he had brought from England. He hired legendary mountain man Jim Bridger as his guide. Before he left the country he had engaged in one of the grossest slaughters of wildlife in western history. In two months alone he killed 105 bear, more than 2.000 bison and 1,600 elk and deer in the Yellowstone Valley. Perhaps fittingly, Sioux Indians surrounded and took the supplies, horses and weapons of Gore’s hunting party on his return trip. It took the group nearly five weeks to struggle back to a friendly Hidatsa camp, and they were naked and nearly starving when they got there. This isn’t the origin of the word gore, but Gore certainly lived up to his name and reaped his reward.