American Fur Company

The American Fur Company was the financially strongest and most politically influential fur trade society of the United States in the early 19th century. 1808 founded by the originally from Germany Johann Jacob Astor, the company contributed significantly to the economic development of the American West.

As the establishment of the first American branch failed on the Pacific coast in 1811 after less than two years in the British -American War, the American Fur Company its activities focused on the U.S. portions of the Great Lakes and the upper Missouri River Valley, where they accounted for a quasi monopoly established. Astor sold his shares in the company in 1834, in 1864 the company was fully acquired by another trading company. They had already become meaningless.