Home About Ancient Finances July 12, 2023 July 9, 2023 U.S. Civil War Pay rates in 1851 on the Dakota Territory frontier. Interior of Fort Union, North Dakota. View from the southwest blockhouse. Photo by James Ulvog. Fort Union in the Dakota Territory was a major trading post constructed and operated by the American Fur Company. For a few years after it was built in 1828 the major trade was obtaining beaver pelts from various Indian tribes. In the 1830s the predominant trade item was buffalo hides.
What were employees of the company operation paid? A plaque at Fort Union provides the following pay scales:
Fort Buford, in what was the Dakota Territory at the time, was the major supply depot as the US Army deployed on the frontier during the Indian Wars of the 1860s and 1870s.