Antoine Robidoux

Antoine Robidoux (September 24, 1794 – August 29, 1860) was a fur trapper and trader of French-Canadian descent best known for his exploits in the American Southwest in the first half of the 19th century.

Early life Robidoux was born in 1794 in Saint Louis, the fourth of six sons of Joseph Robidoux III, the owner of a Saint Louis-based fur trading company, and his wife Catherine Marie Rollet dit Laderoute. The Robidoux family is strongly connected to the history of the North American fur trade, with all of Joseph Robidoux's sons having participated to one degree or another in the family business. One of Antoine's five brothers, Joseph Robidoux IV, established the Blacksnake Hills Trading Post that eventually became the town of St. Joseph, Missouri.

In his early years he helped his father extend his business westward,

In 1829, Antoine and his younger brother Louis Robidoux petitioned for and were granted Mexican citizenship, which freed them to trade and settle in Mexican territory without having to worry about expensive tariffs and other international restrictions, as well as near-exclusive license to trap and trade in the Ute country of what is now western Colorado and eastern Utah. By 1830, Antoine had become a prominent citizen of Santa Fe in social and economic circles. He was even elected the first non-Mexican alcalde of the ayuntamiento (the municipal council), though his political career was short-lived. on a wall of Utah's Westwater Canyon during this time. Likely ascending a trapper's trail from the canyon's mouth on the Colorado River, Robidoux left the following record of his presence engraved on a sandstone bluff:

The inscription was not again brought to public attention until 1933, when Charles Kelly first photographed it. and later applied for a government pension.

Robidoux died in 1860 in St. Joseph, Missouri, at the age of 65.