Note 279 — TRAVELS IN THE INTERIOR OF NORTH AMERICA, IN THE YEARS 1832, 1833, AND 1834 (continued 5)

Fort Pierre was built by the American Fur Company in 1831-32 to replace Fort Tecumseh, which had begun to be undermined by the river. The site chosen was three miles above the mouth of the Teton, about one thousand yards back from the river. The post was christened in June, 1832, upon the visit of Pierre Chouteau, jr., in whose honor it was named. Fort Pierre continued to be the entrepôt of the upper Missouri until 1855, when the company sold the post to the United States, then engaged in a campaign against the hostile Sioux. General Harney wintered here (1855-56) with one thousand two hundred men. The following year (1857), Fort Pierre was abandoned for Fort Randall, a hundred miles farther down the river; the old post was demolished, the best of its fittings transferred to the new post, and the rest allowed to fall into the hands of the Indians. The same year a trader built a new post, also popularly called Fort Pierre, three miles above the old one. New Fort Pierre, a company trading post, was built in 1859 about two miles above the original stockade. This was abandoned in the Sioux outbreak of 1863, and the goods removed to the neighborhood of Fort Sully, a government post established on an island below the city of Pierre, South Dakota.—Ed.