National Parks:
Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site

La Junta, Colorado -- As you approach the gate, you smell the aroma of a cottonwood campfire. Entering the plaza, you hear the clang of the blacksmith’s hammer on an anvil. You are greeted by a guide in 19th-century garb muddied with adobe. Welcome to 1846! Welcome to Bent’s Old Fort!

Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site, eight miles east of La Junta, Colorado, on Highway 194, preserves the site and story of a famous trading post. The fort was one of the significant centers of the fur trade on the Santa Fe Trail, influencing economies around the world. Originally built by brothers Charles and William Bent and their business partner Ceran St. Vrain in 1833, the post was the center of the leading industry west of the Mississippi in the early 1830s. The primary trade was with the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians for buffalo robes. For 16 years, Bent, St. Vrain and Company, managed a prosperous trading empire. The fort was the only major permanent white settlement on the Santa Fe Trail between Missouri and the Mexican settlements.

The fort was located on the Arkansas River, the international boundary between two countries – Mexico on the south side of the river, and the United States on the north. Strategically located on an established road, the fort helped pave the way for the occupation of the West by the U.S. Army during the war with Mexico, and was an instrument of the 19th century doctrine of "manifest destiny."

By 1849, the trade that had made Bent’s fort prosper was deteriorating. Local bison populations were in decline, cottonwood groves were wiped out, and the lives of the Plains Indians had been disrupted by trade, the growing stream of settlers, gold-seekers, and soldiers during and after the Mexican-American War. Clashes with the Plains Tribes had become more frequent; cholera was sweeping the area, and William Bent’s first wife and three brothers had died. Some theorize William tried to burn down the fort upon abandoning it in August 1849. In the early 1850s he constructed Bent’s New Fort, some 40 miles downriver at Big Timbers, near present-day Lamar, Colorado.

Today, Bent’s Old Fort is reborn - faithfully reconstructed by the National Park Service in 1975-76 on the site of the original post. Archeological excavations, original sketches, paintings and diaries were used in the fort's reconstruction. Interpreters in period clothing tell the important story of this crossroads of culture, where Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, and many other cultures came together to trade. We invite you to visit Bent’s Old Fort and experience the sights, sounds and smells of the past at "the Castle on the Plains."

DID YOU KNOW

• Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site was established by Congress in 1960 to "commemorate the role such posts played in the opening of the American West."
• The site today comprises nearly 800 acres, including restored sections of short-grass prairie and riparian communities along the Arkansas River.
• The fort was reconstructed on its original site in 1975-76 by the National Park Service using archeological evidence, period drawings and sketches, and diaries and journals of visitors to the fort.
• The fort hosted a who’s who of the early West: Old Bill Williams, Uncle Dick Wootton, Kit Carson, John C. Fremont, Henry Dodge, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Stephen Watts Kearny, Baptiste Charbonneau (Sacajawea’s son) either worked at or visited the fort.
• In 1846, Charles Bent was appointed first governor of New Mexico under American rule, but he was killed in a violent uprising in Taos in early 1847.
• During the War with Mexico, the U.S. military used Bent’s Old Fort as a supply depot and hospital.
• The reconstructed fort contains more than 160,000 adobe bricks.

DON'T MISS ATTRACTIONS

• In addition to touring the rooms of the fort, be sure to view the 20-minute orientation video.
• Western National Parks Association operates a trade room on site where one can purchase many of the same types of items that were traded during the fort’s heyday.
• Every summer, the fort hosts a Santa Fe Trail Encampment featuring more than 50 living history volunteers. The volunteers take the fort back to the 1840s and set up their camps in the cottonwood grove along the Arkansas River. This annual event takes place at the end of July each year. Visit our website at www.nps.gov/beol/ for the exact dates.
• Celebrate the holidays with the fort during the site’s annual Traditional Holiday Celebration. This event, scheduled for the first weekend in December, features on-going living history, candlelight tours, holiday treats, and games. Witness for yourself the joys, pleasures and pastimes of the 1840s at an isolated trading post.

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE PRIORITIES

• On-going maintenance and repairs to the adobe structure (which has now outlived the original by more than a decade!)
• Revitalization of the park’s volunteer program with training opportunities and expansion of volunteer participation.
• Completion of the park’s Long-Range Interpretive Plan.
• Restoration of native vegetation (short-grass prairie) and elimination of exotic species (a 10-year project to rid the park of tamarisk was recently completed).
• Building of a new, on-site Administration Building and rehabilitation of the back of the fort for use as exhibit space, bookstore and offices.

Source: National Park Service