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Fort
Clark Trading Post State Historic Site is one of the most important archeological
sites in the state because of its well-preserved record of the fur trade and
of personal tragedy. More than 150 years ago, it was the scene of devastating
smallpox and cholera epidemics that decimated most of the inhabitants of a Mandan
and later an Arikara Indian village. The archeological remains of the large
earthlodge village, cemetery, and two fur trade posts (Fort Clark Trading Post
and Primeau's Post) are protected at the site, located one and one-quarter mile
west of the town of Fort Clark, Mercer County.
The story of the site begins in the summer of 1822 when the Mandan built a
village of earth-covered homes on the bluffs of the west bank of the Missouri
River at the confluence of Chardon Creek and Clark's Creek. They called their
new home Mitu'tahakto's (pronounced me-toot-a-hank-tosh), meaning first
village or east village. The community overlooked gardens tended by the village
women who grew crops of corn, beans, squash, pumpkins, and sunflowers. Tobacco
was the only crop grown by men, who were primarily responsible for hunting bison
and other game. After the fall harvest of these crops, the villagers moved to
a winter village sheltered in the wooded Missouri river bottom. In the spring,
they returned to Mitu'tahakto's to plant their crops.
In 1830-1831, James Kipp, an employee of American Fur Company, built Fort Clark Trading Post south of the Mandan village in hopes of enhancing trade with the Indians. The rectangular fort measured 120 feet by 160 feet and was protected by a palisade. Inside the fort were a bourgeois house, where the head trader Francis A. Chardon lived, and other fur trade buildings. Between 1834 and 1839, Chardon kept a journal of his life at Fort Clark, which records the tragic history of the site.