Following the Lewis and Clark Expedition, much of the interior of the western United States remained a mystery and most people traveling to the west coast went by ship. By 1811, at the height of the fur trade, John Jacob Astor, owner of the Pacific Fur Company, pursued an overland route to link his trading empire in the Pacific Northwest to the East. He also recognized the new trading opportunities an overland route would provide for his business. Astor sent companies of men, called Astorians, to scout a route between Astoria, Oregon and St. Louis.
After the 1811 Astorian party proved relatively unsuccessful in finding a route, a second company headed eastward from Astoria, Oregon. Led by Robert Stuart, the expedition left in June 1812. Stuart's expedition "discovered" major lengths of what became the Oregon Trail. The Rocky Mountains posed difficulties for overland expeditions, but, in October 1812 Stuart crossed the gentle South Pass, the first party of Euro-Americans to do so. Stuart's group continued across what is now Wyoming in search of a winter campsite. At Bessemer Bend, Stuart's party built the first known cabin in Wyoming. After an unsettling visit from a party of Arapaho, the Astorians moved further down the North Platte River between present-day Torrington and the Wyoming-Nebraska border. Stuart and his men spent the winter in a shack, hollowing out cottonwood canoes that ultimately proved too heavy for the North Platte when the headed down river in March 1813. Stuart arrived in St. Louis in late April with the news of a passable route across the Rocky Mountains.
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