Kenneth McKenzie.
The Columbia Fur Company was a fur-trading and Indian-trading business that operated from 1821 to 1827 in Michigan Territory and the unorganized territory of the United States.
When the Hudson’s Bay Company merged with the old North West Company in 1821, it dismissed some 900 employees. Many of these men then formed the Columbia Fur Company, which operated between the upper Mississippi and the upper Missouri Rivers. Made up of experienced fur traders, they made impressive profits and soon set up a series of trading posts along the Missouri River. Its headquarters were at Fort Tecumseh, first established in 1822 in central South Dakota. Named after Shawnee Chief Tecumseh, it sat about one mile North of the mouth of the Bad River.
John Jacob Astor, who hated competition, bought out the Columbia Fur Company in July 1827, giving the American Fur Company a virtual monopoly on the upper Missouri River. At the time of the buyout, the Columbia Fur Company had $14,453 in inventory. Keeping several former employees, Astor put Kenneth McKenzie in charge of the American Fur Company’s new Upper Missouri Outfit. The outfit built Fort Teton in 1828, about one mile South of Fort Tecumseh, and the two merged in 1830. The American Fur Company abandoned the combined fort in April 1832 in favor of Fort Pierre.
By Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated October 2026.
Also See:Â
The Great Fur Trading Companies
See Sources.