The people who came to Fort Union had a variety of backgrounds and reasons to visit over its history.

Explorers/Travelers

Artists, naturalists and adventurers are pretty common people when thinking about who came to Fort Union. Names like George Catlin, Prince Maximilian of Wied, Karl Bodmer and John James Audubon. All coming to see and study the west and Upper Missouri frontier.

Managers/Workers

The work force at Fort Union was divided in various stages, managers or bourgeois ran the fort, employed the workers, did the trading and recieved a cut in the profits. The names associated with management are Kenneth MacKenize, Alexander Culbertson, Edward Denig, James Kipp and Charles Larpenteur. Clerks assisted the bourgeois helping with counting the goods coming in and going out as well as doing the trading when the bourgeois needed him. There were hunters, blacksmiths, gunsmiths, language interpreters, tailors and engages who did the labor work.

Tribes

A number of tribes came to Fort Union to trade and establish ties to the area. The fort was built on the request of the Assiniboin but traded with up to 10 different Upper Missouri Northern Plains Tribes.