Antoine Janis

Antoine Janis (March 26, 1824–1890) was a 19th-century French-American fur trader and the first white homesteader in Larimer County, Colorado, in the United States.

As a young man, in his early years Antoine traveled with his father on trading caravans from Missouri to the Green River.

In 1844 he journeyed west on his own, working with brother Nicholas as a scout and interpreter out of Fort Laramie, where he married First Elk Woman of the Oglala Sioux tribe.

He was accompanied by a party of other homesteaders from Fort Laramie, including John B. Provost, his brothers Francis and Nicholas Janis, Antoine LeBeau, Tood Randall, E.W.

He continued to live in the area until 1878, when a general order from the federal government forced his wife to move to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.