Fort Carondelet.—About the year 1787, Pierre Chouteau established a trading post on the high ground afterward known as Halley's bluff, on the Osage river, in what is now Vernon county, Mo. Later the post became known as Fort Carondelet, so named for Baron de Carondelet, the Spanish governor of Louisiana. Early settlers in that locality found the remains of a stone wall, which is belived[sic] to have been the ruins of the old fort. From old documents at St. Louis, it has been learned that the armament of the fort consisted of four small cannon, but no accurate description of the fort itself has been found. It was probably the customary log trading-house, a blockhouse, a cabin or two, surrounded by palisades, and garrisoned by a dozen or more of the employees of the trading company, of which Chouteau was the representative. At the time it was established it was the farthest west of any of the trading posts founded by white men in what is now the State of Missouri, and it is quite likely that some of the Indians of southeastern Kansas traded there at that early day.