Page "Beartooth Highway" Paragraph 9

In August 1872, the pass was crossed by Civil War General Phillip Sheridan and 120 men returning from an inspection tour of Yellowstone.

Rather than take the long detour down the Clarks Fork River to return to Billings, Sheridan took the advice of an old hunter named Greer, who claimed intimate knowledge of the Beartooth Mountains.

When the road was opened in 1936, it essentially followed Sheridan's route over the pass.