Images of rough faced, Grizzly Bear fighting, firewater drinking, yarn spinning, frontiersmen form in the minds eye. Wild men for wild times! To a degree this image is true, but the fur trade was more than wild men. The fur trade was a business, conducted by businessmen. The wilder men living on the frontier chose trapping. Fashion created the fur trade as businessmen sought to satisfy the tastes of designers and customers back east and in Europe, where furs and hides were necessities for fashionable clothing and accessories. Fashions also affected the Indians who sought, silver, vermillion, glass beads, and clothe from traders. Each group depended on the other to supply the resources. Vanity being the driving force, each thought the other made a poor trade. For nearly a century, the fur industry was big business on the frontier, and as the frontier-expanded west, the riches of the region also expanded. The fur trade flourished in Oklahoma due to the abundance of untapped resources of game and easily accessible river ways, two essential ingredients for the fur trade industry.Trading and trapping among the Indians wasn't always an easy or profitable venture as many unfortunates found out. Trapping could prove fatal for many a skinner by rival Indian trappers or from war parties in disputed tribal lands. Nathaniel Fillbrook and a group of men trapping on the Blue River, about 30 miles from the Red, were attacked and killed by an Osage war party. Traders too, were at risk, as John McKnight discovered. McKnight, after setting up a post on the Beaver fork of the Canadian, was attacked and killed and his inventory taken by a Comanche raiding party. Alliances with warring tribes also caused problems for traders. Joseph Bougies post on the Verdigris was attacked and plundered by Choctaws because he was trading with their enemy the Osage.In 1824, due to escalating conflicts between Osages and eastern tribes, the government constructed Ft. Gibs...
