Missouri Fur Company
19th-century fur trading company in Missouri
The Missouri Fur Company (also known as the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company or the Manuel Lisa Trading Company) was one of the earliest fur trading companies in St. Louis, Missouri. Dissolved and reorganized several times, it operated under various names from 1809 until its final dissolution in 1830. It was created by a group of fur traders and merchants from St. Louis and Kaskaskia, Illinois, including Manuel Lisa and members of the Chouteau family. Its expeditions explored the upper Missouri River and traded with a variety of Native American tribes, and it acted as the prototype for fur trading companies along the Missouri River until the 1820s.
Creation of the company
Members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition brought back tales of the riches of the upper Missouri River when they returned to St. Louis in 1806. They reported the region's abundance of beaver at a time when demand for fur was high, fueled by the fashion of beaver hats.
“Missouri Fur Company” enters the record as 19th-century fur trading company in Missouri. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Missouri, Company and 19th-century can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Missouri Fur Company” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Missouri, Company and 19th-century provides the most credible route into that argument.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2749918. VIAF identifies the subject as 129481755. The Library of Congress control number is nr2004012427. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1809, 1830 and 1806.
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This entry incorporates text from “Missouri Fur Company” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.