User:KJPurscell/sandbox

The Song of Three Friends is based on the actions of the men of the Henry-Ashley Company or the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, the attempt by William H. Ashley and Andrew Henry in 1822 to compete with the Hudson's Bay Company. The first expeditions were turned back by the Blackfeet, but subsequent trapping parties were extremely profitable, and for fifteen years a large fur trade developed based through St. Louis, with trappers living year-round in the upper Missouri river basin and the Rocky Mountains.