on at the mouth of the Neosho on the Arkansas River, thus adding government settlers or merchants to the mix of traders and changing trade practices in the area forever. "Should peace be restored, the different tribes would turn their attention altogether to hunting, consequently the Arkansas River would become as valuable highway as the Mississippi and Missouri for the transportation of furs and other articles of Indian trade," A.P. Chouteau.As the Civilized Tribes were being relocated, the U.S. army sent expeditions west. While preparing for one such expedition, Washington Irving in his journal "A Tour of the Prairies" recounts the scene at Chouteau’s trading post as;" a few log houses on the banks of the river, surrounded by a group of Osages simple in garb and aspect, a party of Creeks quite oriental in their appearance, a sprinkling of trappers, hunters, half-breeds, Creoles, Negroes, and other rabble of nondescript beings between civilized and savage life".The fur trade also took place along the Red River. Here no one trader dominated like the Chouteau family of the three forks area. Independent traders established posts along the Red River to trade with the Kiowas and Comanches and the Choctaws and Chickasaws. Josiah Doaks began a small post near the junction of the Kiamichi and Red Rivers in 1821. Another early trader Holland Coffee, and his partner Silas Colville, built a series of trading posts at the North, South, and the Salt Forks of the Red river in 1833. His last post, built in 1837, stood at the mouth of the Wa*censored*a River. Another Red River trader, Able Warren, built a post on Cache Creek in 1839. Col. W. J. Weaver described it: "The post was surrounded by a strong heavy picket in the ground about 15 feet high with a two-story log tower on each corner with portholes for shooting. On two sides of the enclosure were strong gates for the admission of stock and wagon trains." These were the last fur trade posts b...
