FUR FACTS 15 



grounds, whose fame had reached the land of Daniel Boone of whom 

 we have read so much in history. In fact, Daniel Boone, himself, 

 in search for more prolific hunting grounds, had moved to Missouri 

 in 1804 and established himself at a point on the Missouri river about 

 twenty-five miles distant from St. Louis. 



For forty years after the founding of St. Louis, the trade with the 

 Indians and the adjacent settlers and hunters was carried on as an 

 individual business, the Chouteaus and Gratiots (who were among the 

 leading men in the town) and their relatives enjoying the chief share 

 of it and growing prosperous as a result of it. But in time came the 

 necessity for organizing a company, and in 1794, the Missouri Trad- 

 ing Company was formed by the union of all the parties engaged in 

 the business. In this the Chouteaus and a trader named Manuel 

 Lisa were the chief partners. This arrangement continued until 

 1808, when Pierre Chouteau and Manuel Lisa enlarged the Missouri 

 Fur Company, with a capital of $50,000. With this new organization 

 they were enabled to extend their operations over a much wider 

 field. No business was conducted east of the Mississippi River, but 

 the new company went as far south as the Arkansas River, as far 

 west as the Rocky Mountains and as far north as the limits claimed 

 by the great Northwest Fur Company and the still larger and strong- 

 er Hudson's Bay Company, for both these powerful organizations 

 were already in the field and attempting to annex the Missouri River 

 region and even the great plains and domains claimed and occupied 

 by them. 



It is likely that, but for the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804, 

 followed by the active operations of the Missouri Fur Company of 

 St. Louis, four years later, the trade of the vast country around the 

 headwaters of the Missouri would have been lost to us and gone to 

 enrich the dealers in Montreal and London. 



Indeed, it may be said that the enterprise and daring spirit of 

 the St. Louis traders was a most important factor in preventing this 

 entire domain from falling into the hands of the British Government, 

 as the limits between the United States and the British possessions 

 in the Northwest were vague and uncertain and both the Hudson's 

 Bay Company and the Northwest Company of Montreal, were 

 showing a disposition to claim a monopoly of trade in districts in that 

 quarter by setting up the British flag and claiming the ground as 

 British territory. The Hudson's Bay Company had already pushed 

 its operations into what is now known as Utah, without any inter- 

 vention on the part of the authority of the United States. Had this 



