Fort Vancouver
In its first incarnation, in 1825, Fort Vancouver was built near the Columbia River, in present-day Vancouver, Washington State.1 Four years later, this fur-trade post shifted 2 km west, closer to the river, and from there would grow to become the HBC's Columbia District headquarters, where it administered all manner of commercial activity, from trade and shipping to fishing and farming; moreover, Fort Vancouver became a flashpoint for tensions between British, US, and Indigenous interests.2
After the Oregon Treaty of 1846 was ratified, and Fort Vancouver found itself on US soil, the HBC turned its presence north of the 49th parallel, to Fort Victoria, as the base of its west coast operations; the old fort was abandoned in 1860.3
  • 1. Arthur S. Morton, A History of the Canadian West to 1870-71 (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1939), 717.
  • 2. Ibid., 718-720.
  • 3. Dennis F. K. Madill, Fort Vancouver, The Canadian Encyclopedia.
Mentions of this place in the documents