[4] Maurice Le Duc, a French Canadian, grew up in La Crosse, Kingdom of France.

[4][3][c] He left the area as a boy, perhaps with his father, who was a trapper also named Maurie Le Duc.

The younger Le Duc partnered up with Thomas "Pegleg" Smith and trapped in the far west of the American frontier by the age of seventeen.

[3] Utes passed through the area as they traveled between the hunting grounds of the plains and west through the Wet Mountain Valley.

There were wooden gates on the west side of the building that led to a 48-square foot central plaza.