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Fort Okanogan (also spelled Fort Okanagan) was founded as a fur trade outpost by John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company in 1811. It was built at the confluence of the Okanogan and Columbia Rivers, in what is now Okanogan County, Washington. The fort was the first American-owned settlement in what is now Washington.[2]
Originally built for the Pacific Fur Company, the North West Company purchased the fort, along with the rest of the Pacific Fur Company, in 1813. In 1821 the North West Company was merged into Hudson's Bay Company, which took over operation of Fort Okanogan. HBC Governor Sir George Simpson commented about Fort Okanagan during his 1841 visit to the Columbia District:
...is an outpost from the establishment of Thompson's River [Fort Thompson/Fort Shuswap], maintained more for the purpose of facilitating the transport business of that post and New Caledonia than for trade as there are few or no Fur bearing animals in the surrounding country.[3]
Today a museum called the Fort Okanogan Interpretive Center operates at the 45-acre Fort Okanogan State Park, near where the fort stood, five miles north of Brewster, Washington.[2] It is closed during the winter.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ National Register Information System. National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service (2007-01-23).
- ^ a b Gulick, Bill. A Traveler's History of Washington. Caxton Press, 1996. ISBN 0-8700-4371-4. p. 339
- ^ British Columbia from the Earliest Times to the Present, E.O.S. Scholefield and F.W. Howay, p. 406
[edit] External links
