Antoine Gingras was born in 1821 at Red River, the son of Antoine Cuthbert Gingras, a North West Company voyageur and Marguerite Madeleine Trottier. He began his career as a hunter and trapper. Gingras built a two-story exposed-log trading post and a clapboard house on his plot of land in the 1840s. In 1861, the net worth of Gingras was $60,000.00. He soon owned trading posts across the Dakota Territory and parts of Southern Manitoba. In 1851, Gingras was chosen to represent the area in the Minnesota Territorial House of Representatives. He served in the legislature from 1852 to 1853.[2][3]