Shadows of the Past

Description

Show of the Past by: Jan Switzer

Bent’s Old Fort is a fort located in southeastern Colorado, United States. A company owned by brothers Charles & William Bent  and Ceran St Vrain built the fort in 1833 to trade with Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Plains Indians and trappers for buffalo robes. For much of its 16-year operation as a trading post, the fort was the only major white American permanent settlement on the Santa Fe Trail between Missouri and the Mexican settlements. It was initially abandoned by William Bent in 1849.

The fort was reconstructed in 1976 and is open to the public. The area of the fort was designated a National Historic Site under the National Park Service on June 3, 1960. It was further designated a National Historic Landmark later that year on December 19, 1960.

From 1833 to 1849, the fort was a stopping point along the Santa Fe Trail.   The U.S. Army, explorers, and other travelers stopped at the fort to replenish supplies, such as water and food, and perform needed maintenance to their wagons. The American frontiersman Kit Carson was employed as a hunter by the Bent brothers in 1841, and regularly visited the Fort. Likewise, the explorer John C. Frémont used the Fort as both a staging area and a replenishment junction, for his expeditions. During the Mexican–American War in 1846, the fort became a staging area for Colonel Stephen Watts Kearny’s “Army of the West”.

Bent’s Fort is described as having been a structure built of adobe bricks. It was 180 feet long and 135 feet wide. The walls were 15 feet in height and four feet thick and it was the strongest post at that time west of Ft. Leavenworth. The construction of this fort was commenced in 1828 … at a point on the Arkansas somewhere between the present cities of Pueblo and Canon City, having been disadvantageously located. Four years were required in which to complete the structure. On the northwest and southeast corners were hexagonal bastions, in which were mounted a number of cannons. The walls of the fort served as walls of the rooms, all of which faced inwardly on a court or plaza. The walls were loopholed for musketry, and the entrance was through large wooden gates of very heavy timbers.