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The fur companies established many trading posts, which served as forts for protection against the Indians and as places to which hunters and trappers could bring their furs. Some of the hunters and trappers were employed by the fur companies, and others worked independently.

Many Indians also engaged in this trade, and often they were given tobacco, whisky, and weapons in exchange for their furs. In this way much of the work of the missionaries was undone. In the earlier years the hunters and trappers found many kinds of wild animals in Kansas: the buffalo, the wolf, the fox, the deer, the elk, and the antelope, and along the streams the beaver, the otter, the mink, and the muskrat. Later the main supply of furs came from the mountains, and the whole fur trade gradually moved west of what is now Kansas.

The Indian Tepee,

Made of poles and buffalo hides, was the only home of the wandering tribes, and was used by the other tribes when on hunting trips.

Father Padilla, the First Missionary in Kansas.