Fontenelle's Post (Bellevue, Nebraska)

Bellevue · Nebraska · Indian Wars

Quick BriefFontenelle's Post was built in 1822 in the Nebraska Territory by Joshua Pilcher of the Missouri Fur Company on the west side of the Missouri River, becoming one of the first European-American settlements in Nebraska. The post served as a center for trading with local Omaha, Otoe, Missouri, and Pawnee tribes; in 1828 Lucien Fontenelle purchased it and became the lead agent.

History & Significance

First known as Pilcher's Post, this site was built in 1822 by Joshua Pilcher, president of the Missouri Fur Company. Located on a bluff above the Missouri River a few miles north of the Platte, it served as a way station, supply depot, and working center where furs could be dried, beaten, sorted, and weighed before shipment to St. Louis.

In 1823 John Jacob Astor acquired the post through his American Fur Company monopoly. Lucien Fontenelle, born into a wealthy French Creole family in New Orleans, purchased the post in 1828 at age 28.

With the fur trade declining in 1832, Fontenelle sold the post to the U.S. government for use by the Bureau of Indian Affairs as headquarters of the Missouri River Indian Agency, also called the Bellevue Agency. In 1833 Baptist missionaries Moses and Eliza Merrill were allowed to reside at the post, and in 1835 they founded the first Christian mission in Nebraska Territory.

From 1840 to 1853, Logan Fontenelle, son of Lucien, served as official interpreter at the agency. The post's archaeological remains were excavated in the 1970s and are now preserved within Fontenelle Forest Nature Center.