Where the Yellowstone meets the Missouri, the trading post of Fort Union stood for decades as the busiest hub of the northern fur trade, a meeting ground of nations and goods.
For decades in the first half of the nineteenth century, the grandest trading post on the upper Missouri stood near the mouth of the Yellowstone. Fort Union was not a military fort but a private commercial one, the northern anchor of the fur trade, where the peoples of the northern plains brought bison robes and furs to exchange for cloth, metal goods, beads and the other wares of a distant industrial world.
A Marketplace at the River's Meeting
It was a remarkably cosmopolitan place for its time and its remoteness — Assiniboine, Crow, Cree and other nations traded at its counters, and its staff and visitors spoke a babel of tongues. Artists and naturalists traveling the river made it a base, and their paintings and journals preserve a vivid record of the plains before the great changes to come.
From the almanac's reckoning:
- Fort Union was a private fur-trading post near the Yellowstone's mouth.
- Many nations, including the Assiniboine and Crow, traded at its counters.
- A faithful reconstruction now stands on the original site.
The trade that built Fort Union also helped undo the bison herds it depended on, and the post faded as the robe trade collapsed. A faithful reconstruction now stands on the site. The almanac counts Fort Union among the great crossroads of the plains fur trade.
Elsewhere in the Almanac
Statehood at Last: North Dakota Joins the Union in 1889
After decades as a territory, the northern half of Dakota entered the Union as a state in 1889, its admission so entwined with its southern twin that the order was deliberately obscured.
The Métis and the Red River Carts of Pembina
At Pembina in the north, the Métis people forged a distinct culture of the buffalo hunt and the trade trail, their squealing wooden carts once a familiar sight across the plains.
The Powwow and the Living Culture of the Plains Nations
Far from a relic, the powwow endures as a vibrant celebration of song, dance and community among the plains nations, drawing dancers and drums from across the continent.