Joseph Reddeford Walker (1798-1876) was a fur trapper and was one of the first Americans partaking in open fur trade with the Spanish of Santa Fe.

Joseph Reddeford Walker was born in Virginia shortly before his parents migrated to Roane County in eastern Tennessee. In 1819 he moved to Independence in western Missouri, then the farthest west of all American settlements and the center for the Western fur trade and what was to become the Santa Fe Trail.

Walker became a fur trapper and trader and took part in the first attempt that the Americans made to travel to Santa Fe and open trade with what was then a Spanish colony. For a while Walker was sheriff of Jackson County, Missouri. On May 1, 1832 Walker set out with Benjamin Bonneville on a fur-trading expedition to the West. After a year of trapping, Walker met up with Bonneville in July 1833 at...