Fort Renville

Fort Renville stood at the bottom of this hill and served as the headquarters of the fur trade in this area during the 1820s and 1830s. Joseph Renville, the son of a French trader and a Dakota woman, began trading for furs at Lac qui Parle in 1826. As one of the founders of the American Fur Company, which dominated trade in the upper Midwest, he held great influence in the Lac qui Parle area and played an essential role in establishing the mission there. In 1940, archaeologists located the foundations of buildings at Lac qui Parle Mission and the site of Fort Renville. A later study of the fur post identified the location of the trader's house, a cabin used by the missionary Thomas Williamson, and a storehouse, and archaeologists also found evidence of a wooden stockade that gave the fur post the look of a small fort.

Minnesota · United States