Antoine Janis was a 19th-century French-American fur trade

Fur trade

The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of world market for in the early modern period furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most valued...

r and an early white homesteader

Homesteading

Broadly defined, homesteading is a lifestyle of simple self-sufficiency.-Current practice:The term may apply to anyone who follows the back-to-the-land movement by adopting a sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle. While land is no longer freely available in most areas of the world, homesteading...

 in Larimer County

Larimer County, Colorado

Larimer County is the seventh most populous and the ninth most extensive of the 64 counties of the State of Colorado of the United States. The county is located at the northern end of the Front Range, at the edge of the Colorado Eastern Plains along the border with Wyoming...

, Colorado

Colorado

Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

, in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. The first recorded permanent white settler in northern Colorado, he founded the town of Laporte

Laporte, Colorado

Laporte is a census-designated place in Larimer County, Colorado, United States. The population was 2,691 at the 2000 census...

 in 1858.

Biography

Janis was born in
Missouri to a French father and a mulatto

Mulatto

Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...

 mother. As a young man, in his early years Antoine traveled with his father on trading caravans from Missouri

Missouri

Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...

 to the Green River

Green River (Utah)

The Green River, located in the western United States, is the chief tributary of the Colorado River. The watershed of the river, known as the Green River Basin, covers parts of Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado. The Green River is long, beginning in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming and flowing...

. In 1836 he may have traveled with his father on a caravan along the Cache la Poudre River

Cache La Poudre River

The Cache la Poudre River is in the state of Colorado in the United States.Its headwaters are in the Front Range in Larimer County, in the northern part of Rocky Mountain National Park. The river descends eastward in the mountains through the Roosevelt National Forest in Poudre Canyon...

 valley in present-day Larimer County. It is possible but not established that the river obtained its name during this trip.

In 1844 he journeyed west on his own, working with brother Nicholas as a scout and interpreter out of Fort Laramie, where he married First Elk Woman of the Oglala Sioux tribe. While returning from a trip to Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, he passed through present-day Colorado along the Poudre Valley, arriving at the spot where the Poudre emerges from the foothills. He was particularly taken by the valley, calling it "the loveliest spot on earth." At the time, the area was not open to homesteading but was part of the hunting territory of the Arapaho

Arapaho

The Arapaho are a tribe of Native Americans historically living on the eastern plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Sioux. Arapaho is an Algonquian language closely related to Gros Ventre, whose people are seen as an early...

 and Cheyenne

Cheyenne

Cheyenne are a Native American people of the Great Plains, who are of the Algonquian language family. The Cheyenne Nation is composed of two united tribes, the Só'taeo'o and the Tsétsêhéstâhese .The Cheyenne are thought to have branched off other tribes of Algonquian stock inhabiting lands...

. Janis staked out a squatter's claim on the river bottom just west of present-day Laporte in June 1844, with the expectation of returning to homestead there once it was possible to legally file the claim.

It is important to learn of the early history of the two brothers from France. They had a criminal past that was the reason for leaving France.

The opening up of the western Nebraska Territory

Nebraska Territory

The Territory of Nebraska was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from May 30, 1854, until March 1, 1867, when the final extent of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Nebraska. The Nebraska Territory was created by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854...

 to homesteading allowed Janis to return to the area 1858 with his claim filed. He was accompanied by a party of other homesteaders from Fort Laramie, including John B. Provost, his brothers Francis and Nicholas Janis, Antoine LeBeau, Tood Randall, E.W. Raymond, B. Goodman, and Oliver Morrisette. His arrival to the area with his wife came one year before the flood of prospectors in the 1859 Colorado Gold Rush

Colorado Gold Rush

The Pike's Peak Gold Rush was the boom in gold prospecting and mining in the Pike's Peak Country of western Kansas Territory and southwestern Nebraska Territory of the United States that began in July 1858 and lasted until roughly the creation of the Colorado Territory on February 28, 1861...

. Janis settled in the area with approximately 150 lodges of Arapaho, who accompanied him to the spot. With the other members of his party, he founded the town of Colona, which later became Laporte, the first white community in Larimer County. The following year he erected a small wooden house on the south side of Poudre River where he kept a grocery and saloon.

He continued to live in the area until 1878, when a general order from the federal government forced his wife to move to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is an Oglala Sioux Native American reservation located in the U.S. state of South Dakota. Originally included within the territory of the Great Sioux Reservation, Pine Ridge was established in 1889 in the southwest corner of South Dakota on the Nebraska border...

 in South Dakota

South Dakota

South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

. Janis sold his cabin and accompanied his wife to the reservation, where he died in 1890.

In 1939, Janis' wooden homestead cabin was moved from Laporte to its present location adjacent to the Fort Collins Museum and Discovery Science Center

Fort Collins Museum and Discovery Science Center

The Fort Collins Museum and Discovery Science Center is a partnership of two educational institutions that merged in 2008 to create a combined science and cultural resource for Fort Collins and northern Colorado.-Fort Collins Museum:...

 in Fort Collins

Fort Collins, Colorado

Fort Collins is a Home Rule Municipality situated on the Cache La Poudre River along the Colorado Front Range, and is the county seat and most populous city of Larimer County, Colorado, United States. Fort Collins is located north of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. With a 2010 census...

. The cabin is part of the museum grounds open to the public and has been partially restored for tours.