John McLoughlin, baptized Jean-Baptiste McLoughlin, (October 19, 1784 – September 3, 1857) was a French-Canadian, later American, Chief Factor and Superintendent of the Columbia District of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver from 1824 to 1845. He was later known as the "Father of Oregon" for his role in assisting the American cause in the Oregon Country. In the late 1840s, his general store in Oregon City was famous as the last stop on the Oregon Trail.

McLoughlin was born in October 1784 in Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec, and was of Scottish and French Canadian descent. He lived with his great uncle, Colonel William Fraser, for a while as a child. Though baptized Roman Catholic, he was raised Anglican. In his later life, he returned to the Roman Catholic faith.

In 1798, he began to study medicine under Sir James Fisher of Quebec. McLoughlin was granted a licence to practice medicine in Lower Canada (now Quebec) in 1803. He evidently completed his course, as he is widely referred to as "Dr. John McLoughlin".

McLoughlin was hired as a physician at Fort William, the inland headquarters and a fur trade post of the North West Company on Lake Superior.^[when?] There he became a trader and mastered several Indian languages. In 1814, he became a partner in the company.

In 1816, McLoughlin was charged with complicity in the massacre at the Red River Colony after the Battle of Seven Oaks. He and all the other parties from the North West Company were exonerated. The Hudson's Bay Company was found culpable by the appointed Royal Commissioner at its trial on October 30, 1818, and in the later prosecutions by Lord Selkirk and the successful counter-suits.

McLoughlin was instrumental in the negotiations leading to the North West Company's 1821 merger with the Hudson's Bay Company. He was promoted to head the Lac la Pluie district temporarily shortly after the merger.

In 1824, the Hudson's Bay Company appointed McLoughlin, already a Chief Factor, as Superintendent of the Columbia Department (roughly parallel to what Americans know as the Oregon Country), and Peter Skene Ogden was appointed to assist him. At the time, the region was under joint occupation of both the United States and Britain pursuant to the Treaty of 1818. Upon his arrival, McLoughlin determined that the headquarters of the company at Fort Astoria (now Astoria, Oregon), at the mouth of the Columbia River, was unfit. The York Factory Express trade route had evolved from an earlier express brigade used by the North West Company between Fort George, founded in 1811 by John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company) at the mouth of the Columbia River, to Fort William on Lake Superior.

In the 1821 merger with the North West Company, the Hudson's Bay Company gained control of North West Company trading posts west of the Rocky Mountains. They established headquarters at Fort George (formerly Astoria). George Simpson, Governor of Hudson's Bay Company, visited the Columbia District in 1824–25, journeying from York Factory. He investigated a quicker route than previously used, following the Saskatchewan River and crossing the mountains at Athabasca Pass. This route was thereafter followed by the York Factory Express brigades.