The fierce competition waged by the Hudson Bay company, on the upper Missouri river and its tributaries, effected a change of base. We find no record of Lisa visiting this section of the state, but his mark is stamped indelibly on this land. A number of writers seem to think he was here about 1809, but no real record has been found. Manuel Lisa and his wife were the first white people to set up housekeeping in Nebraska, they establishing a home near the mouth of the Platte about 1809.

Jacques Laramie, was at or near that time, associating himself with free trappers and establishing a rendezvous at the confluence of the Platte and Laramie rivers, and there are evidences that white men had preceded him. Someone in earlier years had left the mark on

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

the Hartville hills. Roi and Dornin were met by the returning Astorians, at the eastern end of Grand Island, in the spring of 1813, and they were on their way up the Platte. For how many years they had been coming there is no record, but that they might have been associated with Manuel Lisa, seems quite probable. They appeared as free trappers at the mouth of the Laramie in the later years.

When Robert Stuart and party met them at Grand Island, they had come up the river in a boat, and they disposed of the elkskin craft to the Stuart party. Rio and Dornin them moved on up the Platte through the Sand Hills, and must have traversed the Old Trail sometime during the same year.