In 1810, Hudson Bay Company agent Joseph Howse led the first HBC expedition across the Rocky Mountains into what is now northwest Montana and built a small trading post just north of here, the first European settlement in the valley north of Flathead Lake. Having joined the HBC in 1795 and risen through its ranks, Howse had been sent west of the Rockies to assess the region’s beaver-pelt potential while also watching the movements of North West Company rival David Thompson and Americans east of the Continental Divide. The expedition left Edmonton House in June 1810 and reached this area by autumn, where Howse established Howse House near the junction of two aboriginal trails to trade with the Salish and Kootenai Indians. Its exact site is unknown, though scholars place it somewhere south of Kalispell near Ashley Creek. Blackfeet threats forced Howse and his party to abandon the post in less than a year and return to Canada, but the Hudson Bay Company later resumed trade in western Montana from Fort Connah until 1871.