Fort Kiowa, South Dakota
Between Chamberlain, South Dakota and the Big Bend of the Missouri River · South Dakota · Fur Trade era
History & Significance
Fort Kiowa was constructed in 1822 by Joseph Brazeau Jr. of the Berthold, Chouteau, and Pratte French Company. Brazeau fortified the ~20,000-square-foot complex with a blockhouse and watchtower to guard against Crow and Sioux attacks.
Fort Kiowa soon became known as the jumping-off point for the 1823 trading expedition known as "Ashley's Hundred", which included traders Hugh Glass and Jim Bridger. Glass was brutally attacked by a grizzly bear and suffered many serious life-threatening wounds in the process.
After his companions abandoned him, Glass survived and was able to set his own wounds and crawl more than 200 miles back to Fort Kiowa. In 1827, Bernard Pratte purchased Fort Kiowa from Brazeau and made significant improvements, adding several four room log houses, a storehouse, and a smith shop, then encircled the fort with a wooden picket fence roughly twenty or thirty feet high to prevent Native attacks.
Later that same year, John Jacob Astor purchased Fort Kiowa from Pratte for his rapidly expanding American Fur Company to establish his presence in the upper Missouri and further his monopoly on the American fur trade. In the late 1830s, Astor's American Fur Company was forced to abandon Fort Kiowa as the once lucrative fur trading business was no longer profitable. In 1840, Joseph LaBarge, a former steamboat captain, bought Fort Kiowa as a wintering post and Indian Agency, but under his ownership it was an unsuccessful venture, and he abandoned it within the year, making him the last known inhabitant.
Key Facts
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Kiowa
- https://www.legendsofamerica.com/fort-kiowa-south-dakota/
- https://fortwiki.com/Fort_Kiowa
- https://www.northamericanforts.com/West/sd.html
- https://grokipedia.com/page/Fort_Kiowa
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