Indian tribes as far north as St. Peter's river. The fur trade extended from New York to Montreal, through Canada into the Northwest. The Louisiana Purchase in 1803 opened a new and wonderfully rich. territory for the traffic of pelts. Transportation was afforded by means of Indian canoes, keelboats and other small river craft. The new acquisition. included the great water shed of the Missouri river and a large part of the Western country. It was known throughout the Lewis and Clark expedition that this wilderness abounded in fur-producing animals. John Jacob Astor was not slow to perceive the possibilities of the fur trade in the new territory. He organized the American Fur company in 1808 in New York, and established the Pacific Fur company in 1810. The fur trade along the Missouri river, however, was largely controlled by the Chouteaus. Chouteau is a name familiar in the annals of the West. The members of this French family were noted for their business foresight and their ability to deal successfully with the Indians. Auguste Chouteau, head of the family and one of the founders of St. Louis, was born in New Orleans, August 14, 1750. His brother, Pierre, with whom he was associated in the development of the fur trade in the Missouri river valley, was six years younger. With St. Louis as the base of operations, the Chouteaus extended their fur traffic west to the Kaw river and into the wilderness beyond. Increase in the volume of fur trade and the demand for more systematic business methods led the Chouteaus and several associates to organize the Missouri Fur company in 1808. After several years of intense rivalry between this company and the American Fur company, the two firms were merged in 1813. In an effort to monopolize the fur trade of the West, in 1821 the American Fur Company sent Francois Chouteau, son of Pierre Chouteau, into this territory to establish new trading posts and to bring independent fur traders into subordination to the larger firm. A location was desired that would be accessible to the greatest number of trading points reached by river craft and by overland transportation. With the good judgment that characterized the Chouteaus, Francois discerned that a position near the junction of the Missouri and Kaw rivers would be the most desirable and he chose a site in the Missouri river bottom, opposite Randolph bluffs, about three miles down stream from Kansas City. He brought with him about thirty active men, couriers as the French called them, with whom he was able to concentrate at the central depot the trade of the Tran-Mississippi country. The family of Francois Chouteau came from St. Louis in canoes and pirogues, the journey requiring twenty days. Francois Chouteau's younger brother, Cyprian, came to the central agency in the following year and established a trading post on the north bank of the Kaw river near the site of Bonner Springs, and the post became known as "Four Houses." It derived this name from the fact that the defense consisted of four log houses arranged so as to inclose a square court. Misfortune came to Francois Chouteau in 1826 when a flood in the Missouri river washed away his warehouse. The merchandise and peltry saved from the flood were taken to the "Four Houses" post on the Kaw river. Later Chouteau rebuilt his warehouse farther up the Missouri river on higher ground, included afterwards in Guinotte's addition to Kansas City. This second station was the celebrated "Chouteau's warehouse" of the early traders. Francois Chouteau subsequently entered the land upon which his warehouse stood and he lived there until his death in 1840. Again, in 1844, a flood destroyed Chouteau's warehouse. The family then gave up fur trading and engaged in other business. Descendants of some of the Frenchmen who had been followers of Laclede and others of the same class living in the wilderness joined the Chouteaus at the mouth of the Kaw, shortly after the flood of 1826, and formed a settlement of several dozen families. The French traders were a people of peculiar traits. Thy possessed mild vivacity and gaiety and were distinguished for their inoffensive dispositions and their frugal, enterprising habits. The French settlement never was large, but for twenty-five years it was the center of an immense trade. With an expedition of the American Fur company, in 1815, came Monsieur Jacques Fournais, known as "Old Pino," one of the earliest of the pioneer trappers and hunters. When he arrived in this locality the bluffs crowned by the two Kansas Citys were the haunts of many wild animals of the smaller class. "Old Pino" was a trapper in the Southwest sixty years and after he became too old to follow a life of such hardship, he came to the vicinity of Kansas City and lived almost thirty years at the home of William Mulkey, where he died, July 17, 1871, at the reputed age of 124 years. The life of the old huntsman overlapped our country's four wars: the Revolution, War of 1812, Mexican war and Civil war. He remembered incidents of the Revolution and he was a soldier under General Jackson in New Orleans in the War of 1812. "Old Pino" lived long enough to see the first railroad train that came to Kansas City, and he regarded it as the great event of his life. Another celebrated pioneer in the same class with "Old Pino" was James Bridger, hunter, fur trader, explorer, guide, Indian fighter. He was born in Virginia, March 17, 1804. When Bridger was ten years old, his father and mother having died, he began earning a living for himself and his sister by operating a flatboat at St. Louis. Stories that came from the frontier stirred the lad and when he was eighteen years old he joined a party of trappers and went to the West. After a life of thrilling adventure |