Joseph Antoine Janis

Joseph "Antoine" Janis (top right) with a group of men from the Northern Arapaho Nation.

Brady-Handy photograph collection/Library of Congress

Quick Facts

Significance:

Son of Marguerite Tibeau and Antoine St Charles Janis. Founded LaPorte, Colorado, and has a statue in his honor.

Place of Birth:

St. Charles, Missouri

Date of Birth:

March 26, 1824

Place of Death:

Pine Ridge Native American Reservation, South Dakota

Date of Death:

1889-1890

Place of Burial:

Pine Ridge, Oglala Lakota County, South Dakota

Cemetery Name:

Holy Cross Cemetery

At twelve years old, Joseph “Antoine” Janis accompanied his father, Antoine St. Charles Janis, on an expedition to Colorado in 1836. Eight years later, in July of 1844, Joseph Antoine married a First Elk Woman of the Oglala Sioux tribe named Mary. He met Mary in 1844 when he journeyed west without his father, working with his brother Nicolas (referred to as “Nick” in many historic records) out of Fort Laramie as a scout and interpreter to the tribe. Joseph Antoine is said to be the first permanent Euro-American settler in northern Colorado when he founded the town of Colona (later to become LaPorte) in 1858.  

Joseph Antoine had been in Mexico before 1844 and upon his return passed through the Poudre Valley in present-day Colorado. He called the spot at the foothills of the Poudre River “the loveliest spot on Earth”, but at the time it was not open to homesteading. The area was used by the Arapaho and Cheyenne as hunting territory. Joseph Antoine did stake out a squatter’s claim on the river bottom just west of present-day LaPorte in June 1844 and expected to return to homestead there once it was legal to file the claim.  

Joseph Antoine returned there in 1858 with his claim filed because of the opening of the western Nebraska Territory. A flood of prospectors came to his area the next year with the 1859 Colorado Gold Rush. He constructed a small log cabin on the south side of the Poudre River where he is said to have kept a grocery and saloon. A general order from the federal government forced Mary to move to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1878. Joseph Antoine sold his cabin and went to live with his wife on the reservation when she was forced to move. Joseph Antoine passed away there in 1889-1890.  

Joseph Antoine’s cabin is now on exhibit in downtown Fort Collins, Colorado, on the corner of Matthews and Olive St in the Heritage Courtyard. A historical marker for Joseph Antoine is at 3597 Galway Dr in LaPorte, Colorado, near where his homestead cabin originally stood. There is also a statue of Joseph Antoine at Horsetooth Rd. and Shields St. in Fort Collins.