Antoine Robidoux

Antoine Robidoux (September 24, 1794 – August 29, 1860) was a fur trapper and trader of French-Canadian descent best known for his exploits in the American Southwest in the first half of the 19th century.

In his early years he helped his father extend his business westward,[1] and by the 1820s was focused on developing trade routes in the intermountain corridors of what was at the time the Mexican province of Santa Fe de Nuevo México.

In the summer of 1824, Antoine may have joined a party led by Etienne Provost that traveled to the Uinta Basin to trade for pelts.

[2] Though the exact date of its completion is unknown, Robidoux's post was arguably the first permanent trading operation west of the continental divide.

The fort was visited by many well-known pioneers and mountain men during its years of operation, including Marcus Whitman, Miles Goodyear, and Kit Carson.

Likely ascending a trapper's trail from the canyon's mouth on the Colorado River, Robidoux left the following record of his presence engraved on a sandstone bluff:

Yet there is evidence that Antoine Robidoux was actually in Missouri selling furs and procuring supplies in November 1831, making it impossible for him to have carved the inscription at that time.

[2] A third solution is that 1837 is actually correct and that Robidoux was, in fact, planning to build a third, unidentified trading post in a new location at the time, which either never materialized or was built and subsequently lost to history.