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Events and activities subject to change
The public should be prepared for reduced hours and services provided by Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site employees due to the sequestration that became effective March 1, 2013. Please check back often for further details or changes.
For Teachers
Children working with the craftsmen around the fire.
NPS Photo
The history of Bent’s Old Fort, encompassing the interaction among diverse cultures, including American Indian peoples, along the borderlands of Mexico and the United States, provides an opportunity to explore ideas of security, sovereignty, and culture in the American West. This isolated trading post and its company stores in Santa Fe and Taos, brought the Plains and Pueblo Indians, Mexicans, and Americans together for trade. Business, family, and political relationships developed that forever changed their lives. The interpretive tours and demonstrations relate well to Colorado State teaching standards for history providing fine examples of historical relationships and inquiry, societal changes, economic systems, and social processes and how they shaped populations.
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Did You Know?
The first white woman didn’t arrive at Bent’s Fort until 1846, 13 years after its establishment. Unlike the Oregon Trail, the Santa Fe Trail was basically a freight road, men driving freight wagons. That started to change after the Mexican War when New Mexico became U.S. territory.