The Fur Animals of Louisiana 31 



In order to take better care of the beaver skins they 

 secured from the Indians, Leclede (for he did not use his 

 last name) and Chouteau constructed a cache on a bluff 

 where the "Big Muddy," as the Missouri was then called, 

 and the Mississippi met and formed a giant stream. This 

 small fort grew to a settlement, then to a town, and later 

 to a city of great proportions and importance. The Or- 

 leanians named the town they founded after the King of 



France St. Louis. 



Therefore, New Orleans became the mother, if we may 

 use the simile, of that wondrous city of the mid-western 

 interior which in course of time came to be the great fur- 

 trading center of the North American continent and 

 remained the "fur capital" for a number of years until 

 ever-grasping New York City took over the fur industry 

 for its own during the World War period. 



In the early days the Mississippi river was the main 

 artery of transportation of the North American continent 

 and down the mighty Father of the Waters floated huge 

 cargoes of bundled pelts consigned to New Orleans, where 

 they in turn were loaded on deep water ships for the 

 journey to the far cities of the Old World, and so New 

 Orleans became the chief port of fur export. 



When the Iron Horse superseded the paddle-wheel pal- 

 aces of the Mississippi river as the chief means of trans- 

 portation of this country, the change vitally affected New 

 Orleans and its early-day export business. Its position 

 dwindled to comparative nothingness and, as a consequence, 

 New Orleans' former position in the fur and peltries trade 

 was forgotten. 



Yet today Louisiana is the foremost state of the Union 

 in quantity production of the pelts of fur animals. It is 

 greater in this regard than any other area of the same 

 size on the North American continent. It produces every 

 year more pelts of fur animals than is produced by all of 

 the provinces of Canada— all this in spite of the state's 

 sub-tropical geographical position, and may be destined, in 

 time, to occupy the niche in the fur trade of America she 

 held two hundred and more years ago. 



