Although there was never a post office at Chisholm Springs, there were many Indian families living near the trading post.  The Chisholm Trading Post store was the only one in town.  It was adjoined to a blacksmith shop, warehouse cabin for storage of furs, and the tall stockade enclosure built by Col. Auguste Pierre Chouteau*.  Many gold rush travelers stopped in Chisholm Springs for their last chance to buy supplies on the old California Road in 1849, two years after Jesse Chisholm arrived to open his trading post.  It was originally one of three trading post on the Canadian river established by Chouteau in 1835, only three years after Washington Irving made his “Tour of the Prairies”, and passed through Pottawatomie County.   Jesse Chisholm was better known among the Plains Indians as “Prairie Jess”.  He had operated trading wagons since the early 1830s.  Jesse was a half-breed Cherokee trader, guide, pathfinder, interpreter and peace maker.  It was said that Jesse Chisholm was a “friend to all, and he had no enemies.”

*Auguste Pierre Chouteau was the son of Major Jean Pierre Chouteau the founder of St. Louis, Oklahoma; who established the first trading post in what is now Oklahoma back in 1796.  His grandfather was Rene Auguste Chouteau who came from France to New Orleans.