For more than half a century, Auguste and Pierre Chouteau dominated trade and enterprise in the Mississippi Valley. In their various roles as merchants, Indian

In the late 18th century, the vast land that lay west of the Mississippi River beckoned to daring frontiersmen, who produced the first major industry of the Ame

In the late eighteenth century, the vast, pristine land that lay west of the Mississippi River remained largely unknown to the outside world. The area beckoned