16 FUR FACTS 



occupation remained undisputed for a few years longer, it is not im- 

 probable that it would have been necessary to reclaim it through the 

 force of arms. 



At this time, however, came Lewis and Clark, two gallant ex- 

 plorers, whose expedition was a bold and final proclamation in the 

 face of the whole world, that all the country west of the Mississippi 

 River to the Pacific Coast, and including the entire Columbia River 

 region, belonged to the United States, and when the Chouteau's and 

 Lisa sent their officers and agents and employees and shortly after- 

 ward followed themselves into the upper Missouri region the great 

 Northwest became ours in fact as it had already been by right. 



The then extended operations of the St. Louis traders under the 

 new organization were extremely gratifying. During the last 25 

 years of French ownership of Louisiana, including the post of St. 

 Louis, its annual value was estimated at over $200,000. The annual 

 pack of beaver skins alone it is estimated was worth $60,000; deer 

 $60,000; otter $30,000; bear $14,000; fox, raccoon and wildcat $12,000; 

 buffalo $40,000 and lynx $1,500. 



The fur trade, which had so much to do with the early life of 

 St. Louis, began with the very beginning of the city itself, and had 

 there been no fur trade and no material for such a business, there 

 likely would have been no St. Louis for more than hah* a century 

 after the post was established. 



Kentucky and Tennessee, the two oldest states west of the Alle- 

 ghenies, were settled by explorers and hunters from Virginia and the 

 Carolinas in search of adventure who were attracted by the abundant 

 game that roamed at will in their boundless forests and, perhaps, 

 by the danger they would encounter in hunting, from the Indians 

 who claimed the game and the hunting grounds along with it as 

 their ancient right. 



It was only natural, that following the close of the Revolutionary 

 War many officers and soldiers who had served in the Continental 

 Army, and lost everything they possessed, should come over the 

 AUeghenies, or down the Ohio, Cumberland and Tennessee to Lex- 

 ington, Louisville and Nashville and to find in these new and growing 

 settlements the opportunity for repairing their broken fortunes and 

 of attaining eminence in the states of which these settlements were 

 the beginnings. 



And had the mouth of the Ohio been only twenty, instead of two 

 hundred miles from the Missouri, it is highly probable that the 



