Columbia District

The Columbia District was a fur-trading district of the Pacific Northwest, organized by the North West Company around 1810 and taken over by the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821, when it became known as the Columbia Department. Its territory stretched from the Thompson River in the north to the Columbia basin and the Oregon Country, a region also claimed by the United States. David Thompson's explorations and the founding of Fort Astoria by the American Pacific Fur Company set the stage for competition; the fort was sold to the North West Company in 1813 and renamed Fort George. In 1824-25 the Hudson's Bay Company built Fort Vancouver on the lower Columbia as the district's headquarters, and the post became the hub of a network reaching from the Rockies to Hawaii and Russian Alaska. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 ended the joint occupation and divided the region between Britain and the United States. The district's mainland remnant became the Colony of British Columbia in 1858.