The first Fort Lisa (1810-1812), also known as the Fort Manuel Lisa Trading Post, Fort Manuel or Fort Mandan, was started by the notable

fur trader The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the mos ...

Manuel Lisa Manuel Lisa, also known as Manuel de Lisa (September 8, 1772 in New Orleans Louisiana (New Spain) – August 12, 1820 in St. Louis, Missouri), was a Spanish citizen and later, became an American citizen who, while living on the western frontier, b ...

of the

Missouri Fur Company 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 ...

in 1809. This fort was likely where

Sacagawea Sacagawea ( or ; also spelled Sakakawea or Sacajawea; May – December 20, 1812 or April 9, 1884)Sacagawea
...

died; she had been the guide for the

Lewis and Clark Expedition The Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery Expedition, was the United States expedition to cross the newly acquired western portion of the country after the Louisiana Purchase. The Corps of Discovery was a select gro ...

. Fort Lisa superseded

Fort Raymond Fort Raymond or alternatively Manuel's Fort or Fort Manuel, was an outpost established by fur trader Manuel Lisa and was named after his son.Morris, Larry E. ''The Perilous West''. Lanham, MD: Row & Littlefield Publishing. 2013, p. 20. The post was ...

as the uppermost post of the Missouri Fur Company on the Missouri River. In 1812 Lisa built a replacement fort downriver near present-day

North Omaha, Nebraska North Omaha is a community area in Omaha, Nebraska, in the United States. It is bordered by Cuming and Dodge Streets on the south, Interstate 680 on the north, North 72nd Street on the west and the Missouri River and Carter Lake, Iowa on the ea ...

, which he also named Fort Lisa.

History

In the winter of 1807, Lisa opened

at the mouth of the

Bighorn River The Bighorn River is a tributary of the Yellowstone, approximately long, in the states of Wyoming and Montana in the western United States. The river was named in 1805 by fur trader François Larocque for the bighorn sheep he saw along its ban ...

in modern

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

. After returning to

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

the following year, he formed the

with local explorer

William Clark William Clark (August 1, 1770 – September 1, 1838) was an American explorer, soldier, Indian agent, and territorial governor. A native of Virginia, he grew up in pre-statehood Kentucky before later settling in what became the state of Misso ...

and members of the Chouteau family, founders of St. Louis. With company assets allowing a large party of 300 men, Lisa left in 1809 on a fur expedition in the north. After visiting Fort Raymond, he built a new station named Fort Lisa and shifted operations to the new post. The new station was located near a Gros Ventres of the Missouri (Hidatsa) village, in between the mouth of the Little Missouri and that of the

Knife A knife ( : knives; from Old Norse 'knife, dirk') is a tool or weapon with a cutting edge or blade, usually attached to a handle or hilt. One of the earliest tools used by humanity, knives appeared at least 2.5 million years ago, as evidenced ...

rivers in what is now

North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the Native Americans in the United States, indigenous Dakota people, Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north a ...

. During its first year of operation Pierre Dorion, Jr., his common law wife

Marie Aioe Dorion "Madame" Marie Aioe Dorion Venier Toupin (ca. 1786 – September 5, 1850) was the only female member of an overland expedition sent by Pacific Fur Company to the Pacific Northwest in 1810. Like her first husband, Pierre Dorion Jr., she was Métis p ...

and family resided at the station.

Description

John Bradbury visited Fort Lisa in 1811 and sketched it as follows:

"The Fort consisted of a square block-house, the lower part of which was a room for furs: the upper part was inhabited by Mr. Lewis and some of the hunters belonging to the establishment. There were some small outhouses, and the whole was surrounded by a pallisado, or piquet, about fifteen feet high. I found attached to it a very pretty garden, in which were peas, beans, sallad, radishes, and other vegetables..."

Pacific Fur Company

Employees of the

Pacific Fur Company The Pacific Fur Company (PFC) was an American fur trade venture wholly owned and funded by John Jacob Astor that functioned from 1810 to 1813. It was based in the Pacific Northwest, an area contested over the decades between the United Kingdom o ...

visited Fort Lisa on the 23 June 1811. Bradbury, John.
Travels into the Interior of America, in the years 1809, 1810, and 1811.
' London: Smith and Galway, 1817. pp. 139-140. The fellow fur trappers were received favorably by Reuben Lewis, brother of

Meriwether Lewis Meriwether Lewis (August 18, 1774 – October 11, 1809) was an American explorer, soldier, politician, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery, with ...

Ramsay Crooks Ramsay Crooks (2 January 1787 – 6 June 1859) was an American fur trader who immigrated to Canada from Greenock, Scotland. He was the father of American Civil War Colonel William Crooks (colonel), William Crooks who served in the 6th Minnesota R ...

commanded the group and was sent by

W. Price Hunt Wilson Price Hunt (March 20, 1783 – April 13, 1842) was an early American pioneer, pioneer and explorer of the Oregon Country in the Pacific Northwest of North America. Employed as an agent in the fur trade under John Jacob Astor, Hunt organized ...

after making an agreement with Lisa to purchase horses. Fort Lisa was noted to have minimal food supplies at the time. Lisa arrived at the fur trading post on the 25th of June and finalised the transaction with Crooks. Crooks and his employees departed the following day to the

Arikara Arikara (), also known as Sahnish,
''Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation.'' (Retrieved Sep 29, 2011)

nation, where the majority of the PFC workforce was residing.

Sacagawea

Henry Brackenridge Henry Marie Brackenridge (May 11, 1786 – January 18, 1871) was an American writer, lawyer, judge, superintendent, and U.S. Congressman from Pennsylvania. Born in Pittsburgh in 1786, he was educated by his father, the writer and judge Hugh H ...

during 1811 wrote in his journal that

Sacagawea Sacagawea ( or ; also spelled Sakakawea or Sacajawea; May – December 20, 1812 or April 9, 1884)Sacagawea
...

, the notable Native American guide for the

, was living at Fort Lisa with her husband

Charbonneau Charbonneau may refer to: People * Charbonneau (surname) Places * Charbonneau, North Dakota * Charbonneau, Oregon Wine grapes *Charbonneau (grape), another name for the French wine grape Douce noir *Dolcetto, Italian wine grape that is also ...

. He wrote that Sacagawea "...had become sickly and longed to revisit her native country." The following year, John Luttig, a clerk at Fort Manuel Lisa, recorded in his journal on December 20, 1812, that "...the wife of Charbonneau, a Snake Squaw, died of putrid fever." (Note: Often called childbed fever, this was a frequent complication of childbirth.) Luttig noted that she was "aged about 25 years. She left a fine infant girl."Drumm, Stella M., ed. (1920). "Journal of a Fur-trading Expedition on the Upper Missouri: John Luttig, 1812-1813". St. Louis: ''Missouri Historical Society''. Charbonneau had already entrusted his and Sacagawea's son Jean Baptiste into Clark's care for a boarding school education. Clark was fond of the boy and offered to support his education.

Abandonment

Difficulties with certain Indigenous nations and shipping at this location meant that by 1812, Fort Lisa ceased to be utilized by the MFC.W. Raymond Wood, "Post-Expedition Fur Trade: The Great Engine"
''Discovering Lewis & Clark'', 1998-2008, accessed 8 Aug 2008 Lisa built a third fort downriver about 12 miles north of present-day

Omaha Omaha ( ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Nebraska and the county seat of Douglas County. Omaha is in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's 39th-largest city ...

in that year. He named this Fort Lisa, too, and shifted his operations to this location. This became the main post of the

and its successors under various names.

References

{{coord, 47, 17, 46, N, 101, 17, 10, W, region:US-ND_source:GNIS_type:landmark, display=title Landmarks in North Dakota Fur trade History of United States expansionism Buildings and structures in Mercer County, North Dakota Missouri River 1810 establishments in the United States Archaeological sites in North Dakota

Lisa Lisa or LISA may refer to: People People with the mononym * Lisa Lisa (born 1967), American actress and lead singer of the Cult Jam * Lisa (Japanese musician, born 1974), stylized "LISA", Japanese singer and producer * Lisa Komine (born 1978), J ...