Hudson’s Bay Company Trading Post, Georgetown

In 1859, the Hudson’s Bay Company built a trading post and steamboat landing near the meeting point of the Red and Buffalo Rivers in Minnesota. They named the post and the surrounding town Georgetown. The traders left the post during the US–Dakota War of 1862 but returned when the war ended. When the Northern Pacific and other railroad companies built lines through Clay County in the 1870s, the Hudson’s Bay Company abandoned its post at Georgetown.

In 1857, the US government granted the Hudson’s Bay Company a license to trade furs and other goods in the United States. Since the company already had a factory (headquarters) on the Red River in Canada, it made sense for it to build a post on the Red River in the United States as well. This new post would help connect its Canadian fur trading operations with a global market.

The company chose a site near where the Red River meets the Buffalo River in northwestern Minnesota. There, in 1859, it built a fur warehouse, store, and boat landing. It named the post, and the town that grew around it, Georgetown, after Sir George Simpson. Simpson ran the Hudson’s Bay Company from 1820 to 1860.

Before building the post at Georgetown, the Hudson’s Bay Company and other traders shipped goods by ox cart from St. Paul to Fort Garry. After building the post, it could ship goods by cart or stagecoach to Georgetown before loading them on steamboats to make the rest of the trip to Fort Garry. This reduced the time it took to ship freight from about a month to closer to two weeks.

Although moving goods this way was faster in theory, bad weather often delayed the process. When the roads were dry enough for the stagecoaches to make it to Georgetown, the Red River was often too low for the steamboats to navigate it. The Red River north of Georgetown was barely navigable for steamboats at the best of times, and low water levels made it impassable. Inclement weather often stranded freight and passengers at Georgetown or Fort Garry for weeks. Additionally, the Red River’s frequent flooding meant that any crops the residents of Georgetown tried to plant were at risk; in 1861, after they planted their first crop, a flood destroyed it.

Legally unable to own property in the United States, the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) hired St. Paul resident Anson Northrup to operate a steamboat on its behalf along the Red River south of Canada. Northrop built the company’s first American boat in 1859 and named it after himself. His namesake vessel, however—the Anson Northrup—was heavy and hard to maneuver; it struggled to navigate the winding and shallow Red River before sinking in 1861. Another group launched a replacement, the International, in the spring of 1862. The Burbank brothers’ Minnesota Stage Company (a second proxy for the HBC) operated most of the stagecoaches that transported freight and people from St. Cloud to Georgetown. It also bought the Anson Northrup and began operating it as the Pioneer.

In 1862, war broke out in the Minnesota River Valley between white settler-colonists and a group of Santee Dakota. When news of the battles of New Ulm and the deaths of some colonists spread to those living at Georgetown, they fled. The residents of Georgetown returned in 1864 and reopened the post.

The Northern Pacific Railroad connected Fargo–Moorhead to St. Paul in 1871. This was a boon for the steamboat business in Georgetown. The Red River steamboats transported colonists looking to move to Canada as well as supplies to extend the railroad to Winnipeg. The building of the railroad to Fisher’s Landing, Minnesota, in 1876 meant that Georgetown was no longer a convenient stopping point for stagecoaches or steamboats. After the rail connection to Winnipeg was completed in 1878, sending freight or passengers by steamboat was no longer the cheapest method. The Hudson’s Bay Company soon left Georgetown, but the town remained.