Don't know author or title....but heard on radio show......author talk about how trappers opened up continental
US territory west of ohio...mostly because of beavers......more than farming or conquest .....maybe less than 2 years written...... sounds like its loaded with facts and history...not some flowery off topic story book.......would someone know of it......

Yep and beaver

If you want the best stories, find the diaries written by the trappers and traders themselves. Some could write well, other could barely write. But you get the words straight from them.

Zenas Leonard
Warren Ferris
Osborne Russell
George Ruxton
James Clyman
James O Pattie
FA Wislizenus
Gen. Thomas James

Other good ones are:
Wa to yah and the Taos Trail by Garrard
Across the Wide Missouri by deVoto
The Reckless Breed of Men by Cleland
A Majority of Scoundrels by Berry

I’ve read Osborne Russel’s account and DeVoto’s Across The Wide Missouri. Both excellent reads. Also would recommend Lewis and Clark’s journals the DeVoto edition. The journals are probably my favorite book besides the Bible.

I would suspect that the gold rush in CA is what really got the west going, trapping may have started it on a small scale but gold drew alot more in.

It’s an old book but (The Fist of the Wilderness) is a good book about the American fur Company. Don’t know how available it is, I read it years ago.

The fur trade opened all the routes used by the gold rush. Many of the old traders and trappers acted as guides during all the western migrations.
The gold rush moved more people west, but didn't really open much new territory.

Exactly

Furthermore if not for American fur traders and trappers much of the west may have become Canadian rather than American. Also trappers glowing accounts of Oregon's farming potential is what really got the masses headed west several years before gold was discovered.

Before gold was discovered in California the western migration had already begun with Mormans headed to Salt Lake on the Morman Trail and settlers headed to the Willamette valley in Oregon via the Oregon Trail Folks on both routes were being guided by trappers after the beaver were trapped out and the beaver market had colapsed. The gold discovery sure threw gas on the fire though.

The north American continent was opened, and explored by the fur traders, starting back in the 1500's





The Beaver Men

By Mari Sandoz



Lays it out pretty well.

We visited the Mari Sandoz musuem this summer. She said i interviews she would not let real history get in the way of a good story. I would definitely read other sources. Hers may be a good read, just not the best as far as credible history.

Just met ...Sunday ......at cemetery....placing Christmas decorations.....a woman in her 70's.........said her father's side history....goes back to original Mayflower landing...in 1620s......didn't think fast enough to ask if trapping was in their history....first time in 60 + years I've seen anyone at her family's grave.......maybe I'll ask her next 60 when I see her again.....

Am wondering if any north American/Canadian Indigenous people on this forum.......have a different handed down history perspective of European trapping constantly moving west

The railroad opened the west.

Nope, just like my reply about the gold rush. The railroad simply made it easier and faster to move more people West. The RR followed routes that had been being walked and rode for decades, starting with the men of the fur trade.

In fact, many of the fur trade men worked as guides for the railroads, showing them the routes through the mountains.

The quest for beaver is what drove the push west, but it also took more than a little bit of a conquest mindset to go decimate gam animal populations, build trails, and live in a land where other people were already living.

The gold rush and the railroads came well after every single creek and mountain range had been explored by the mountain men fur trappers. They were following the trails of the Indians most of the time of course. The westward expansion came before the gold rush and the railroads, in fact the mormon trail, the oregon trail and the california trails were all well established well before 1849. American is founded on furs.

The railroad definitely opened up the west to settlement
The railroad was the first to use Government funded capitalism which was the huge factor in settling the west.
Before the railroad it took months for horse drawn wagons to cross the continent,after the last spike was driven it only took a few days,And it was a flood thereafter.