Built at the entrance of the Columbia River in 1811, Fort Astoria was the first American-owned settlement on the Pacific coast of North America.

The onset of the War of 1812 caused the PFC to fold as it was too isolated to expect any military protection or support from the United States.

Competition for control of Fort Astoria was a factor in the British and the Americans' resolving their disputed claims to the Oregon Country.

[2] John Jacob Astor was a German American merchant who over several decades financed several successful mercantile missions to Qing China.

Notably Astor was able to recruit several NWC partners and employees into the PFC, including Donald McKenzie, Alexander MacKay, and Duncan McDougall.

To create these new fur trade locations, Astor planned to send detachments of laborers and officers both overland on a route similar to one taken by the Lewis and Clark Expedition and on merchant vessels that rounded Cape Horn for the Columbia.

By the end of May 1811, company employees built Fort Astoria out of bark-covered logs that enclosed a stockade and guns mounted for defense.

Ross recalled that in almost two months, "scarcely yet an acre of ground cleared"[6] due to the many initial difficulties the PFC employees faced in establishing Fort Astoria: The place thus selected for the emporium of the west, might challenge the whole continent to produce a spot of equal extent presenting more difficulties to the settler: studded with many gigantic trees of almost incredible size, many of them measuring fifty feet in girth, and so close together, and intermingled with huge rocks, as to make it work of no ordinary labour to level and clear the ground.

On June 15, 1811, two unusual native visitors arrived: the two-spirit Kaúxuma Núpika (known in English as Man-like Woman or Bowdash, which is derived from the Chinook Jargon burdash) and their wife, both of the Kootenai from the far interior.

The journals of Thompson and the Astorians are silent on the matter, yet both parties took steps to mislead or thwart the other, while at the same time remaining on friendly terms.

"[7] According to Jones, this "latent distrust" of Chinookans by Astorians from this incident was probably unfounded, as they entered the post "for an innocent purpose" and were frightened by the drills.

Eventually a brisk trade commenced with the locals who had remained on board, with the pelts being sold primarily for American blades.

On 1 July 1813, the fort officers of Donald Mackenzie, Duncan McDougall, David Stuart, and John Clarke, desiring to abandon the fort agreed to sell the PFC trading stations to the British-owned NWC, "unless the necessary support and supplies arrive with advice from John Jacob Astor of New York, or the Stockholders to continue the trade, the same shall be abandoned as impracticable, as well as unprofitable.

[15] Its captain William Black found the trading station far from militarily imposing, reportedly exclaiming "Is this the fort about which I have heard so much talking?

Consistently small stockpiles of foodstuffs at Fort Astoria created the need for frequent transactions with Chinookans for sustenance.

This dependence on fish made it a primary food source for the Astorians, which caused some discontent among employees desiring a more familiar diet.

[17][18] Terrestrial animals like members of the family Cervidae such as Roosevelt elk and black-tailed deer were not found in large numbers around Fort Astoria.

Another frequent item sold was the wapato root, with the volume consumed by the Astorians large enough to necessitate the creation of a small cellar made specifically to house the produce.

NWC laborers developed Fort George by expanding its agricultural fields, in addition to creating "several large buildings erected, and the pallisades [sic] and bastions strengthened.

Besides his intention for this new post to supply foodstuffs for company stations in the Pacific Northwest, Simpson determined to relocate the Columbia Department administrative apparatus there as well.

While the post was gradually rebuilt,[22] the dilapidated condition and extensive repairs required forced the sole clerk to live in a tent during the winter.

[27] While ordering a lowering of exchange rates for skins in 1829, Chief Factor John McLoughlin focused on maintaining commercial ties with the Chinookan peoples through "forcing our Competitors to reduce their prices.

Despite Chief Factor McLoughlin lamenting that "we have no alternative but to run the risk or lose the property", the assistance tendered by them proved invaluable for the company.

The Methodist missionary Daniel Lee reported that Birnie maintained "abundant crops of most excellent potatoes and garden vegetables" at the post.

[32] The growing salmon harvesting operations of the Hudson's Bay Company were focused on the fisheries surrounding Fort George.

[33] The USS Ontario was dispatched in 1817 to reassert the American claim to Fort Astoria, though ordered to avoid an armed confrontation.

[34] NWC partner Simon McGillivray dramatically claimed that the vessel was sent "to seize or destroy the establishments and trade of the North West Company..."[34] The NWC partners had already instructed its staff at Fort George to not resist an attempt by Americans to reclaim the fur trading station.