1673 - Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette discover the mouth of the Missouri River.

1738 - Pierre La Verendrye visits the Mandan Indians on the upper Missouri in what becomes central North Dakota.

1805 - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark explore the junction of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers, enroute to the pacific coast.

1808 - John Jacob Astor organizes the American Fur Company.

1828 - Kenneth McKenzie founds Fort Union near the junction of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers and becomes the first Bourgeois.

1830 - The Assiniboin Chief, Tchatka, or le Gaucher, fails in an attempt to seize Fort Union from within.

1831 - McKenzie succeeds in beginning trade with the Blackfeet Indians. Fort McKenzie eventually established in their territory to trade.

1832 - Fort Union partially destroyed by fire, construction of the enlarged post began.

1832 - Steamboat YELLOW STONE reaches Fort Union. Artist George Catlin and Pierre Chouteau, Jr., on board.

1832 - Congress passes a bill prohibiting liquor in Indian Territory.

1833 - Robert Campbell and William Sublette establish Fort William at the mouth of the Yellowstone River to compete with Fort Union.

1833 - Prince Maximilian of Wied and the artist Karl Bodmer visit Fort Union and other fur trading posts.

1834 - John Jacob Astor retires from the fur trade. Pratte, Chouteau and Co. buy out the Western Department of the American Fur Company; Ramsey Crooks takes over the Northern Department.

1834 - Charles Larpenteur becomes employed at Fort Union, and records many events in his diary entitled Forty Years a Fur Trader.

1837 - McKenzie retires from active duty in the fur trade. He moves to St. Louis.

1837 - Smallpox epidemic on the upper Missouri River kills thousands of Indian people.

1838 - Pratte, Chouteau and Co. reorganized as Pierre Chouteau Jr. and Co.

1840 - Father Pierre DeSmet, S.J., pays his first of many visits to Fort Union. James Kipp is the bourgeois.

1843 - John James Audubon and party visit Fort Union.

1844 - Jim Bridger and a party of trappers spend the winter of 1844-45 at Fort Union.

1851 - First record of a white woman at Fort Union, Mrs. Joseph LaBarge, the wife of a steamboat captain. No record that she actually left the boat and visited the post.

1851 - Swiss artist Rudolph F. Kurz arrives at Fort Union as a clerk. He returns home to Switzerland in 1852.

1857 - Another smallpox epidemic outbreak on the upper Missouri.

1856 - On December 1, 400 Sioux foiled in an attempt to attack Fort Union.

1860 - Gold discovered in Idaho.

1861 - Dakota Territory established.

1861 - The American Civil War begins.

1864 - In June, Company I, 30th Wisconsin Infantry is stationed at Fort Union. In August, General Alfred Sully arrives with his command after the west Dakota campaign.

1864 - Montana Territory established.

1865 - In June, word arrives that Pierre Chouteau Jr. and Co. has sold Fort Union to the Northwest Fur Co. Army leaves Fort Union in August.

1866 - Advance party of the Thirteenth Infantry, U.S. Army arrives at confluence and commences building Fort Buford on June 12th.

1866 - Fall and Winter of 1866-67, Sioux harass Forts Union and Buford repeatedly. Sitting Bull visits the traders at Fort Union demanding a gift.

1867 - U.S. Government purchases Fort Union, dismantles it, and uses the materials in enlarging Fort Buford. Later, the site of Fort Union was included in the Fort Buford Military Reservation.

1966 - Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site established by Congress as a unit in the National Park System.

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