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About Antoine Robidoux And Fort Uncompahgre
Product Description Antoine Robidoux, equally at home in the mountains or the Santa Fe governor's home, built a vast fur trading empire that covered modern day western Colorado and eastern Utah. In his book, Ken Reyher tracks the life of a young adventurer who heads West to eventually build a trading empire that successfully challenged even the powerful Hudson Bay Company. As quickly as he rose, his world came crashing down, and one of the great chapters of the early west came to an end. About the Author Ken Reyher's family came to Colorado in the years that followed the Civil War. He grew up listening to stories from his grandfather Bill Reyher who, as a boy, had worked cattle with veterans of the Texas longhorn trails. Grandfather Henry Weimer, a former cavalryman, shared in the story telling. After a seven-year tour in the military, Reyher returned to Colorado where he taught high school history for twenty years, operated a flying service and engaged in farming. Stories about the early days of the state continue to play a role in his life. His articles about the old west have appeared in several magazines, and he writes regularly for two western Colorado newspapers, for one of which he is the history editor. This is his first book. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. (From Preface) For Antoine Robidoux, Saint Louis had become too confining, too settled and too predictable. What had been a collection of log huts in his father's day had grown into a center of commerce and an open gate pointing toward the vast western frontier. That gate proved irresistible and in 1824 young Antoine headed his horse down the 800 mile trail towards Santa Fe and the newly independent nation of Mexico. He rode alongside American wagons loaded with trade goods and watched in the Santa Fe plaza as those goods were exchanged for Mexican silver. From Santa Fe he rode northwest into an unexplored wilderness. There he found streams teeming with beaver and mountain valleys inhabited by friendly bands of Ute Indians as eager for American trade goods as were the citizens of Santa Fe. More importantly he found a region still free from the tentacles of the powerful American fur companies headquartered back in St. Louis. Antoine returned to Santa Fe. Young, handsome, and gifted with both social graces and the Spanish language, he quickly became integrated into Santa Fe society, was granted Mexican citizenship and was elected to the city council. He courted and married the governor's daughter and obtained a trading license that gave him control over a territory covering what would one day become western Colorado and eastern Utah. In the years that followed he built three trading posts and an empire that successfully challenged even the powerful British Hudson Bay Company. Then, almost as quickly, Antoine's world came crashing down and one of the great chapters of the early west came to an end.
