The Shoshone River is formed in the Absaroka Mountain Range in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. The river is surrounded by the National Shoshone Forest, the first national forest, created in 1891. As the river flows northeast, past Cody Wyoming, it joins the Bighorn River near the Montana border.
John Colter, famous explorer and trapper of the early 1800s, originally named the river Stinking Water when he encountered the strong sulfur odor at a geo-thermal area on the river. The Wyoming legislature later changed the name to Shoshone River. It was named after a western band of Shoshone Indians. Shoshone means abundance of grass and is a referrence to the tribe's grass lodges. Meriwether Lewis, of Lewis and Clark expedition fame, and his men were the first white people the Shoshones had ever seen. Lewis, during his expedition, hoped to acquire horses from the Shoshones. Before Lewis had met the Indians, he had written, “If we do not find [the Shoshones], I fear the successful issue of our voyage will be very doubtful.”