Fort Tecumseh, and again in 1832 it was rebuilt near by as "Fort Pierre Chouteau," which was soon thereafter curtailed by common use to "Fort Pierre." Until the year before the erection of Fort Pierre the up-river trade was all carried on by means of the slow-going keel boats, but in 1831 the enterprising Pierre Chouteau, Jr., son of the man
Pierre Chouteau, Jr.
who had fought the Ree Indians in the Big White expedition, built a small, flat-bottomed steamboat, intended expressly for navigation on the shallow Missouri, and with it brought a cargo of goods to Fort Tecumseh. This steamboat trip entirely revolutionized the Missouri River fur trade, and made it possible to accomplish with great ease, in a few weeks of time, what formerly had required an entire season. The next year Chouteau took his steamboat, the Yellowstone, clear through to the forks of the Missouri and there built Fort Union.
This successful navigation of the Missouri, to its head, was one of the great sensations of that period. Thereafter many distinguished travelers visited the Dakota country. Even on the trip of 1832 Chouteau was accom-
