The First Chouteaus: RIVER BARONS OF EARLY ST. LOUIS

by William E. Foley, C. David Rice

 
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 traders, bankers, land speculators, governmental advisors, public officials, and community leaders, the Chouteau brothers exerted a tremendous influence on westward expansion. This is the first full account of their lives and illustrious careers.
 

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography

241 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1983

Reviews

[Greg Strandberg]

This was a really good look at both the very earliest origins of the fur trade on the Missouri River and the start of St. Louis.

You get a lot of information on the Chouteau family, primarily Auguste and Pierre (Jean-Pierre). I liked the detail on the costs, like how much money people were making, how much furs were, even how much the expense of the Marquis de Lafayette's visit was in the 1810s.

This is a very good resource for historians. If you're a regular reader it's not very dry. I was primarily interested in Montana and found a wealth of information about the Upper Missouri. Give it a look!

[Roadhouse]

Great book about the founding and early years of St. Louis. Mr. Chouteau was quite an individual. He was a French subject founding a city on Spanish land that became a US State, and the whole time he made money doing it. He was an incredible American!

[Julia DeBarrioz]

Very interesting information about early St. Louis. As well as the Chouteaus it tells about the brief moment in which the Spanish governed the Louisiana territory and early white/Indigenous interactions.