Soon after Lewis and Clark plied the waters of the Missouri River for the first time in 1804, a fur trader named Manuel Lisa started a fort at the base of the cliffs near Ponca Creek and what is now known as the Blair Road. He called it Fort Horn, while everyone else called it Fort Lisa.
Origins of Fort Lisa
Manuel de-Lisa Rodriguez (1772-1820) was a Spanish citizen born in the city of Nueva Orleans in the province of La Luisiana in New Spain in 1772. As a young man, Lisa acquired his own boat and worked along the Mississippi River as a fur trapper and trader. Starting up the Missouri River as a rancher and fur trapper in the 1890s, he built a fur trading empire that included a half-dozen forts and a near-monopoly over the fur trade in the western half of the present-day United States.
Organizing the first large-scale fur trading and trapping venture in the Louisiana Purchase of 1804, Lisa built a trading fort called Fort Raymond at the confluence of the Yellowstone and Bighorn Rivers in present-day Montana. In 1808, Lisa established the Missouri Fur Company in a small village at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers called St. Louis.
He made repeated expeditions up and down the Missouri River for years. In 1809, he established a fort at Three Forks in Montana, where the Gallatin, the Madison and the Jefferson rivers come together to form the Missouri River. Lisa and his companies opened several trading forts on these expeditions, including Fort Lisa (1812-1820); Fort Mandan in North Dakota (1810-1812); Fort Raymond in Montana (1807-1810); Fort Henry at 3 Forks in Montana (1810); Fort Henry on the Henry’s Fork tributary of Snake River in Montana (1810-1813); Cedar Island in South Dakota (1810-?); and Fort Manuel in South Dakota (1810-?).
Over the rest of his life Manuel Lisa was very influential, starting a powerful fur trading company and eventually helping the U.S. Government take control over the western United States. One of the ways he did that was by founding his first Nebraska post near the Omaha tribe in 1812. Becoming known as Nebraska’s first white settler, he was an Indian agent in Omaha for the government from 1815 to 1817.
Fort Lisa was surrounded by a large stockade, had several buildings inside and outside of its walls, and became a busy intersection for the half-dozen tribes in the area. Eventually, in addition to the trading post there was also a blacksmith and sawmill there. Bringing fur pelts to trade from across the the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, the Native trappers would join Lisa in a large store within the stockage, trade for a variety of goods, and make their host wealthy. At one point Manuel Lisa employed 100 workers at the fort, along with a large steamboat landing on the Missouri River.
Lisa traded in furs, cattle, horses and land. His trading partners were largely the Omaha and Ponca, with occasional visits from the Pawnee, Sioux, Omaha, Ponca, Cheyenne, Mandan, Crow, Ankara, and other tribes. He is credited with promoting the United States during his time, and maintaining peaceful relations between the many Europeans trolling the rivers with the tribes.
In 1813, Lisa became one of the incorporators of the Bank of St. Louis.
While living in Nebraska, Lisa assisted the 1819 Yellowstone Expedition led by Major Stephen H. Long. This led to the establishment of Fort Atkinson near his post, but shortly thereafter Manuel Lisa became sick, left for St. Louis, and died. Lewis was buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery at the Hempstead family plot in St. Louis.
Family Life
Manuel Lisa married his first wife, Mary-Polly (Charles) Chales [widow Chew] (1783-1818), in 1803. She was a homesteader with her husband near a trading fort operated by Manuel when her husband was killed. Manuel married her and moved the family to the small village of St. Louis, Missouri. She had a child before they were married, and became the mother of two of Manuel’s children. Mary-Polly died in 1818.
In 1808, Lisa established the Missouri Fur Company and made another expedition in 1809. Traveling the upper Missouri River, he established a post at Three Forks in Montana, where the Gallatin, the Madison and the Jefferson rivers come together to form the Missouri River. On these ventures, Lisa also opened a series of forts.
In 1812, he opened Fort Lisa in present-day North Omaha, Nebraska, and because of this he became known as Nebraska’s first white settler. Lisa returned to St. Louis intermittently throughout the years. In 1813, he became one of the incorporators of the Bank of St. Louis.
His second wife, Mitain (unknown-unknown), was the daughter of a leader in the Omaha Nation, and was married to Manuel as a gesture of goodwill by her father. She was a “country wife” to Manuel and never left their home in Indian Territory, near present-day Omaha, Nebraska. She had two children with Manuel, including a daughter and a son. Manuel took their daughter to St. Louis to be “Europeanized.” Manuel abandoned his son with Mitain in the Indian Territory when he went back to St. Louis in 1820.
After his first wife died in 1818, Manuel married Mary Hempstead Keeney (1782-1869) in 1818. She was the child of a wealthy and influential family in the emerging city of St. Louis. They didn’t have any children, and she lived long after Manuel died.
While living in present-day Nebraska, Manuel assisted the 1819 Yellowstone Expedition. This led to the establishment of Fort Atkinson near his post, but shortly thereafter he became sick, left for St. Louis, and died. Lewis was buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery at the Hempstead family plot.
Manuel had several children, including:
- Anna, stepdaughter with Mary-Polly
- Raimond (Raymond) (December 4, 1805-July 1, 1811), son with Mary-Polly
- Manuel Jr. (October 14, 1809-August 1826), son with Mary-Polly
- Christopher (1818-1819), son with Mary-Polly
- Rosalie (1815- 1904), daughter with Mitain
- Christopher (1816-unknown), song with Mitain
All of his children died young except Rosalie.
In the summer of 1820, Lisa became deathly ill. His then trading partner, Joshua Pilcher, took him to St. Louis, where he died in August of that year. Fort Lisa was closed and its operations were moved to Bellevue. The fort was used as a general store for at least another twenty years after Manuel Lisa’s death.
His Wife Mitahne
Mitahne was the daughter of Ong pa tonga, aka Big Elk (c1765–c1848), a noted chief of the Umoⁿhoⁿ Nation. Around 1814, Big Elk granted Mitahne to Manuel Lisa as a gesture to secure his favor. Referred to as Lisa’s “country wife,” they was married already when they lived together at Fort Lisa, which was located on Umoⁿhoⁿ land. Lisa was originally married to a French-American woman, and after she died young he married a status woman from St. Louis. The entire time Mitain was his “country wife.”
Mitain became the mother of three children from Big Elk, including Rosalie Ely (1814-1904), Raymond, and Christopher. When Lisa left the Indian Territory permanently in 1820, he took his first two children with him to St. Louis. They were raised in Catholic schools and Americanized. Rosalie died at the age of 90 and buried in rural Illinois outside of St. Louis.
Major Stephen H. Long (1784-1864) mentioned her in “Travels to the Rocky Mountains,” his account including his 1819 stay near the site of Fort Lisa. He reported an incident where she was nearly murdered when members of the Great Sioux Nation attacked her and her youngest child, Christopher. The last reported sighting of her was along the Missouri River in present-day Nebraska in 1822 when Prince Maximilian of Wied-Neuwied (1782-1867) made note of her in a journal. It is unknown what became of Mitain after then.
The Lost Fort Lisa
Remnants of Fort Lisa have been lost to time, as was its location. For more than two hundred years it has stayed lost, considered by some to be near the old town of Rockport along Deer Creek, while others thought it was south of Ponca Creek by Hummel Park. Some historians place it at the Council Bluff, where Lewis and Clark meant with tribal leaders in 1804. Most have placed it between Cabenne’s Post and the Engineer Cantonment.
In the late 1920s, there was a raging debate in Omaha about where Fort Lisa was. In 2019, an archeologist searched for it using ground-penetrating radar, and after it was determined almost precisely where the site was located.
Either way, Fort Lisa is still long gone. There are no barricades, no buildings, no trails and no signs. No chimneys stand and few objects have been shared publicly.
However, the legacy of Manuel Lisa is surely evident. The city of Omaha is clearly focused on business, commerce and money, just like Lisa was. Despite almost being an afterthought to many west Omahans, the Missouri River is gaining importance again today as the downtown region tries to embrace it, just like Manuel Lisa did.
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My Articles About the History of Ponca Hills
Ponca Road | Ponca School | Latenser Round House | Blue Windows House | Pries Lake | Hummel Park | Cabannè’s Trading Post | Wyman Heights | Fort Lisa | Forgot Store | River Drive | J.J. Pershing Drive
Elsewhere Online
- “Manuel Lisa” by A. E. Sheldon from History and Stories of Nebraska.
- “Manuel Lisa,” Wikipedia.
- “The Fur Traders: Manuel Lisa” from nebraskastudies.org
- “Fort Lisa” by A. E. Shelton in the Semi-Centennial History of Nebraska.
- “Lisa’s Fur Trade Forts,” by R.W. Wood for the Discover Lewis & Clark website.
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i very much enjoyed your writing about Manuel Lisa, fort Lisa and their places in nebraska history, especially there in omaha, and its area.
You made mention that an archeologist was able to locate fort lisa, and I am quite interested as to where it turned out to be.
my interest stems from growing up in north Omaha, from 1956 to 1966, and am quite familiar with the miller park area where my grandmother lived on the corner of kansas and 24th, Hummel park where I went to day camp one year and the fort Calhoun area where my cousin’s family still lives.
I am definitely interested to know more about fort Lisa’s location if you could share more about how and where it was located and whether any artifacts were recovered for display.
much thanks!