However, the Hudson's Bay Company was not happy about these actions  because new settlers interfered with the lucrative fur trade. He later left the organization and founded Oregon City in the Willamette Valley.

The original post, which included about 40 buildings, including homes, a school, a library, a pharmacy, a chapel, a blacksmith, and a large manufacturing facility, was surrounded by a 20 foot high palisade that measured about 750 long and 450 wide. Outside its tall walls, the large corporate monopoly also built additionally housing, a shipyard, hospital, distillery, tannery, sawmill, dairy, agricultural fields and fruit orchards.

As the administrative center and principal supply depot for the vast area, the fort served as the hub of an extensive fur trading network utilizing two dozen posts, six ships, and about 600 employees during peak seasons, most whom worked in agricultural activities.  

Fort Vancouver became a center of activity and influence, supported by a multicultural village with inhabitants from over 35 different ethnic and tribal groups. Though it was a British establishment, the primary languages were Canadian French and Chinook Jargon.

It became one of the largest settlements in the West during its time and served as the early end of the Oregon Trail for American immigrants.

During the late 1840s and early 1850s, slowing returns from trapping and growing numbers of settlers led to a shift in focus from the fur brigades to land-based mercantile opportunities. With this change came a shift in the village activity and population. The numbers of Hawaiian employees increased, such that by the 1850s the village became known as "Kanaka Town," or "Kanaka Village," referring to the Hawaiian word for "person."

Not only was the village a living quarters for the Company employees, but it also became the site of establishing the U.S. Army as a permanent presence in the Pacific Northwest. In May, 1849, the U.S. Army set up the Camp Columbia on a rise 20 feet above the trading post.

Though the Hudson's Bay Company assisted the soldiers by allowing them to use their sawmill for cutting timber, the building of the post was very slow, due to the California Gold Rush. Creating a scarcity of labor and supplies, high prices, and numerous deserters, those who were left continued to toil on, but construction was not complete until the spring of 1851. At that time, the army post was renamed Columbia Barracks.

The traders and soldiers initially coexisted amicably and the Army rented many of the village buildings as well as hiring more locals. In the early 1850s, the Army built several new buildings, including the Quartermaster Depot, and Captain Rufus Ingalls' house, where Ulysses S. Grant lived from 1852 until 1853. The army post was expanded to more than 10,000 acres and renamed Fort Vancouver Military Reservation.