1821 - Vanguard of the fur trade

         Joshua Pilcher, who took over the Missouri Fur Company when Manuel Lisa died the previous year, sends 300 men into the Yellowstone country to trap beavers.  They return with $25,000 in pelts.

   Fur traders meeting with western Indians.

• December - Stephen F. Austin establishes a colony in Texas.
• September - Pierre-DeSmet lands in Philadelphia after a 40 day crossing from Belgium.
• A trapper named Laramie - about whom almost nothing is known - was killed by Indians on the eponymous stream.  His name would eventually migrate to a mountain range, a peak, the plains, the fort, a town, a city, and a county in the state of Wyoming.