Fort Union Trading Post Historic Structures Report (Part II) Historical Data Section

In January 1832, the first range of dwellings, located on the western side of the fort, was destroyed by fire. Bourgeois McKenzie described the range briefly; it was 24 by 120 feet, and was occupied by the clerks, interpreters, mechanics, engages, and their families. Considering the number of such employees at the post during the 1830's, one can imagine the crowdedness. The fire began under the floor of Mr. Chardon's room "and there being. . . a free communication under the whole range, and much rubbish accumulated there, it was almost simultaneous in every apartment." Besides the building and the personal possessions, 1,000 planks stored in the lofts and a cellar full of small kegs were also destroyed. McKenzie estimated that it would take five months to rebuild the range.

The new building apparently was the same size and style as the old. Denig (1843) said it was 119 by 21 feet. Although not as strongly built as the store range (HS 10), Denig thought it was satisfactory:

The height of the building is in proportion to that of the pickets; it is one large story high, and shingle-roofed. This is partitioned off into six different apartments of nearly equal size. The first two are appropriated to the use of the clerks who may be stationed at the post. The next is the residence of the hunters, and the remaining three the dwellings of the men in the employ of the Company.

Kurz (1851) entered the interpreter's room to witness a gambling game: "The room, dimly lighted by the open fire and one candle, was crowded with performers and onlookers. . . redskins, white. . . and half-breeds." The gamblers, sitting in two rows on the floor, consisted of "eight Herantsa and seven Assiniboin." Kurz spent his first night at the fort in this room, "The inside. . . presented an appearance rather like an Indian's habitation. On the floor. . . were three beds for three couples of half-Indians and their full-blooded wives."

Larpenteur's diary recorded some of the maintenance on the building and some of the details of his own room: "a chimney corner," curtains, locks on insides of the doors, hauling lime and sand to plaster the clerks' room, temporary storage of furs in the interpreters' room, hauling slabs "to make an upper floor in the mens room," and whitewashing the outside walls.

The Bodmer sketch (1833), the Point sketch (1847) and one of Kurz' drawings (1851) suggests that the range was not covered by one continuous roof although the apartments, or rooms, abutted one another. Two other Kurz drawings, looking down on the roof, show it to be one continuous line. Most of the sketches that include the chimneys show three of them. This number is probably correct, each chimney serving two rooms. A door and a window on the east wall served each apartment (Kurz and Point). A (board?) sidewalk ran along the east side of the building (Kurz, 1851, and Soldier, 1864).

In the two Kurz sketches done from the top of the southwest bastion, the end of a gable roof appears in the lower left corner of the drawings. We have no other information concerning this structure at this time. Later, notice will be made of several structures that are known to have existed but the location of which is unknown. It is possible, of course, that HS 10 might be one of those structures. (See, particularly, HS 29.)