The enterprise that eventually came to be known as the Rocky Mountain Fur Company was established in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1822 by William Henry Ashley and Andrew Henry. Among the original employees, known as "Ashley's Hundred," were Jedediah Smith, who went on to take a leading role in the company's operations, and Jim Bridger, who was among those who bought out Smith and his partners in 1830. It was Bridger and his partners who gave the enterprise the name "Rocky Mountain Fur Company."
The company became a pioneer in western exploration, most notably in the Green River Valley. The operations of other aspiring organizations like the American Fur Company would often overlap, causing a fierce rivalry. Growing competition motivated the trappers to explore and head deeper into the wilderness. This led to greater knowledge of the topography and to great reductions in the beaver populations.
Eventually the intense competition for fewer and fewer beavers and the transient style of fur hats brought the Rocky Mountain Fur Company down. Nearly a decade after its founding, the stock holders sold all their shares, leaving behind a legacy in terms of both western settlement and folklore. The US government, seeking geographic knowledge or travel advice regarding the West, would seek out former members of the company as consultants. Ashley himself later became a congressman whose expertise was Western affairs.
Founding
In the early 1820s General William Ashley, of the Missouri militia, was looking to enter state politics but needed to raise funds to do so. Having barely survived a slew of past entrepreneurial and military pursuits, Ashley was looking at an insolvent future. To counteract his previous financial failures, he looked west to the fur trade.
Joining him as a partner was Major Andrew Henry, a long-time friend of Ashley's. Canvasing the local St. Louis area in 1822, they published an ad in the St. Louis Enquirer. It targeted "One Hundred enterprising young men . . . to ascend the river Missouri to its source, there to be employed for one, two, or three years." The caliber of men sought by Ashley and Henry would serve as the prototypical "mountain man". The criteria for the position was simple enough – masculine, well-armed, and able to work (trap) for up to three years.
The ad attracted ample attention; roughly 180 men signed up. Among those hired were Jedediah Smith and Jim Bridger. Later, the Sublette brothers, William and Milton, Jim Beckwourth, Hugh Glass, Thomas Fitzpatrick, David Edward Jackson, Joseph Meek, Robert Newell joined the company. Smith, Jackson and William Sublette bought the Company in 1826, and sold out to Bridger, Milton Sublette, Fitzpatrick and two others in 1830, at which time the enterprise was given the name by which it is most commonly referred to.
The payment method was uniquely designed by Ashley. Leveraging employment costs, Ashley and Henry had their trappers keep half of their proceeds and forfeit the other half to management. In turn, Ashley and Henry would provide many of the materials needed to trap.
Operation
In the early days, Ashley's Hundred worked the lands around the upper Missouri River. As the company considered building outposts along the river, Ashley soon discovered that the Missouri Fur Company had already done so. Eventually Ashley and his company moved farther west to the mountain range for which it was named.
Forging new paths and discovering landscapes unknown to whites, the Rocky Mountain Fur Company ultimately pioneered a new style in the fur trade. Known as the brigade-rendezvous system, Major Henry's system was formed in part as a reaction to a July 1822 law prohibiting the sale of alcohol to Indians. Prior to this point, the fur trade had relied on Indians to do the actual trapping and hunting that produced the furs; they were then brought to trading posts where, with increasing frequency, the Indians were given liquor both as an actual medium of exchange, and in order to render them pliant and easily cheated. The pattern was so firmly established that it was difficult to conduct business without a substantial supply of alcohol. Henry's plan made Indian trappers and trading posts unnecessary; he trained white men and Métis Indigenous People to trap and then meet up at a rendezvous, a temporary trade gathering located wherever was convenient.