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Fort History Plains Tribes Site Map |
Fort Union was established in
the fall of 1828 by John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company. Located near the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, Fort Union was in an ideal spot to draw in several different tribes. The land north of the Missouri was Assiniboine Indian territory and Fort Union was built specifically for that tribe. But just up the Yellowstone were the Crow, who also frequented Fort Union. In addition to these two tribes Fort Union was visited by the Arikira, Mandan, Hidatsa, Plains Cree, Plains Chippewa, Blackfoot, and Sioux, as well as groups of Metis from the Red River Valley.
The fort's construction was supervised by Kenneth McKenzie. McKenzie had learned the business of the fur trade as a clerk for the North West Company, but when that company was absorbed into the Hudson's Bay Company McKenzie and many others found themselves out of work. By the mid-1820's McKenzie was head of the Columbia Fur Company, which would soon become the Upper Missouri Outfit, a division of the ever-expanding American Fur Company. As Fort Union's first bourgeois McKenzie set the standard that all succeeding bourgeois tried to achieve.
In addition to the various tribes that visited Fort Union, several notable
travelers and mountain men called at the trading post. Artists George Catlin, Karl Bodmer, and Rudolf F. Kurz painted and sketched the fort and its various inhabitants. Duke Paul of Wuerttemberg and his more famous cousin, Prince Maximillian of Wied, each visited Fort Union. John James Audubon and Father Pierre DeSmet each spent many days at the post. And mountain men Jim Bridger, Jim Beckwourth, and Hugh Glass visited the fort at least once each.
When Fort Union was first constructed beaver was still king and was the primary fur taken from the Indians in exchange for trade goods. But within a few years the beaver trade declined and buffalo robes became the primary medium of exchange. Buffalo would dominate until the fort closed in 1867. During the 1850's, the height of the trade on the Upper Missouri, about 150,000 buffalo robes were shipped out of Fort Union each year.
In 1837 smallpox made a devastating appearance at Fort Union. The 1837 epidemic was so widespread and so powerful that many tribes were all but wiped out. Ninety percent of the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes were killed by the 1837 epidemic. At Fort Union, efforts were made to protect the Assiniboin and other tribes. Inoculations were attempted, but they proved unsuccessful. And the Indians were told to stay away from the fort, but fearing they were being tricked the tribes came to the fort anyway.
In the last years of the Civil War, Union troops arrived at Fort Union. They were on the plains as part of General Alfred Sully's campaigns against the Sioux. Company I, 30th Wisconsin Infantry garrisoned Fort Union guarding supplies that had been dropped off there for Sully. When he arrived at Fort Union, Sully set about to search for a site for a military fort. He almost immediately chose not to use Fort Union, partly due to the dilapidated state and partly due to its small size. In 1866 more troops arrived in the area and began construction of Fort Buford, three miles east of Fort Union.
For a variety of reasons, including shifting migration patterns of buffalo, shifting tribal territories, the arrival of the military in the region, and changes related to westward expansion, the fur trade began to decline in the 1860's. By 1866 Fort Union had been sold to the Northwest Fur Company (not to be confused with the North West Company), but that company could only make the trade last another year. In 1867 the post was sold to the Army, and troops from Fort Buford dismantled Fort Union, using the material to expand Fort Buford. Fort Union was no more.
But the memory of Fort Union did not die. The soldiers at Fort Buford remembered the old fur post and it was frequently mentioned in the reports of many officers. Soldiers and scouts frequented the site, wandering and wondering among the ruins. Indians, too, continued to come to the site. In fact, the area was home to a band of Hidatsas led by Crow Flies High from 1869 - 1884. In 1903-1904 the town of Mondak was founded and laid out just North of the railroad tracks and West of the state line from the grand old fort. Mondak grew quickly, gained a rough-and-tumble reputation because of a number of saloons servicing dry North Dakota, and then faded by the 1920s with national prohibition.
A key event that solidified the memory of Fort Union, though, was Ralph Budd's 1925 Upper Missouri Historical Expedition. The Expedition arrived at the site of old Fort Union in May of that year. A Great Northern Railway crew erected a flagpole near the site of the fort's original flagpole. A group of Mandan Indians constructed an earthlodge just south of what had been the south pallisade wall. The crowds gathered, and then gathered again the following year when Budd returned, this time with the Columbia River Historical Expedition.
Thanks to this attention, the National Park Service began to look at the site of Fort Union during the 1930s. In 1937 the Park Service sent historian Edward A. Hummel to examine the site and write a report. Thanks to the efforts of Ralph Budd and people of the city of Williston, ND, and the report of Hummel, the State Historical Society of North Dakota took over the site and began to administer it as a State Historic Site in 1941. It would remain in state hands until 1966 when the site became a unit of the National Park System as Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site. For the next 20 years local history buffs and congressional delegates would lobby and plan until reconstruction of the site was approved, in 1987 the Bourgeois House was reconstructed. In 1989 the wall and bastions were rebuilt, and in 1991 the Indian Trade House was reconstructed. In 1993 refurnishing of the trade house to its 1851 appearance began, a project that would be ongoing until the summer of 2001.
Fort Union now stands as a shining star on the Upper Missouri once again. From 1828 to 1867 it operated as a functioning trading post, being the grandest post on the Upper Missouri. From 1867 to 1986 the light was diminished, shining only in the memories and dreams of interested people. But now, Fort Union is back, and thousands of folks once again come each summer to visit, do a little trading, and learn the story of "good old" Fort Union.
A Brief Tour for kids of all ages!
A 1937 photo taken by Edward A. Hummel and included in his March 31, 1938 Special Report. Note the flagpole from the 1925 Upper Missouri Historical Expedition in the left center and the Mandan earthlodge near the river bank. (NPS Photo)