Etienne Veniard - Sieur de Bourgemont Historical Marker

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The text of the marker reads as follows:

Starting about 1680, the pressure of French traders moving up the Missouri from the Illinois country coincided with the commercial void created by the Pueblo Indian revolt in New Mexico. Soon, Frenchmen were coming in considerable numbers via the Missouri, to Kawsmouth and beyond, whence they journeyed overland to Taos and Santa Fe. They were the precursors of the Santa Fe Trail traders. The route up the Missouri was officially explored and mapped for Louis XIV’s government in 1713 by Etienne Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont. He noted the “low range of hills on the South side and the Kansas River entering from the South.” His military engineer on the trip, Renaudiere, noted the site later selected for Ft’ de Cavagnial (1744-1764), a trading post at the village of the Kansa Indians on the river bluffs North of present Fort Leavenworth (just over the horizon to the Northwest). In 1724, accompanied by the first doctor and he first priest who were definitely known to have visited the site of Kansas City, Bourgmont visited the Kansa and journeyed to within a short distance of New Mexico to open the way for the Santa Fe trade. The Kansa later removed nearer to the Kawsmouth area and Francois Chouteau set up a trading emporium at Kawsmouth which his uncle, Pierre Chouteau, referred to as “Chez Les Canses”-i.e. at the home or Village of the Kansa. It was but a short step from that name to Town of Kansas and, eventually to the present Kansas City.

Etienne Veniard - Sieur de Bourgemont, The Historical Marker Database. Accessed July 28th, 2022. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=86210.