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 Here
at Fort Benton, trade occurred
mainly between Indians and the American Fur
Company. Peaceful ones came inside the
walls and into the store to trade. In
the Fort's early years trading was done
through a small window in a narrow passage
that opened to the outside which was
protected by rifles to curtail outbreaks of
violence.
Trade
items were priced for the free trader and
others with money, but usually the barter
system prevailed. Furs and robes were
traded directly for provisions and a
multitude of trade items both practical and
impractical.
The
biggest item was under the counter whiskey;
it gave the best profit to the trader. For a
few cents the company would take an Indian's
furs and give him watered-down whiskey.
The furs would then be sold for many dollars
at the exchange in St. Louis. The
company was caught and punished several
times because of the whiskey trade, once
being saved by the fort's namesake Thomas
Hart Benton. That never slowed the
practice. Nothing slowed the practice
until the last buffalo robe disappeared from
the Upper Missouri.
The
attached warehouse served as storage for the
robes and furs before their shipment down
river. Fur and robes were pressed into
bundles containing sixty medium sized pelts.
The bundles weighed about one hundred pounds
each and sold for $8.00 per pound in St.
Louis. Shipments were kept until
spring then sent down river on mackinaw
boats, built at the fort, or via keelboats
which came every spring full of new
provisions and trade goods.
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