Chouteau's Post

A. P. Chouteau's trade ran on the Osage, today's Osage Nation (Wazhazhe), his exclusive trading partners from 1817. By the mid-1820s his business brought about twenty thousand dollars in goods a year into Three Forks, exchanged for beaver, bison and deer pelts shipped to New Orleans. From 1822 he lived in La Grande Saline, a two-story log dogtrot house at present Salina. His wife, Sophie Labbadie, stayed in St. Louis, and he likely fathered at least one son by an Osage wife. He died in debt at Fort Gibson on December 25, 1838, and creditors took his assets.

What the plaque says

Chouteau's Post Oldest permanent American settlement in state. Grew out of Chouteau's fur trade at St. Louis with Osages after they settled in this region in 1802 from Missouri. Improvements here in 1817 became residence of Col. A.P. Chouteau, West Point grad., noted in western U.S. official life and for many posts in Indian trade.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Saline Courthouse Museum — 9.7 mi
  The one Cherokee district courthouse of nine still standing, an 1884 building near Rose that the Cherokee Nation bought back and opened as a museum in 2019.
• Cabin Creek Battlefield — 14 mi
  The Texas Road ford in the Cherokee Nation where Stand Watie twice struck at Union supply trains for Fort Gibson, losing in July 1863 and winning 130 wagons in September 1864.

More markers nearby

• Battle of Locust Grove — 6.5 mi
• Cabin Creek Battlefield — 15 mi
• Wagoner — 26 mi