Last updated: February 13, 2026
Article
Significance of the 1976 Reconstructed Fort
NPS photo
Origin and Use of the Historic Fort
Trader William Bent, son of a Missouri lawyer, arrived in what would become Colorado Territory with his brother Charles and their colleague Ceran St. Vrain around 1824. Only 15 years old, Bent established a beaver trapping trade in the region before moving downriver to the north bank of the Arkansas in 1828. (Hyde, Life of George Bent, 58) For four years between 1828-1832, the Bents and St. Vrain built an adobe fort with the intent to trade with Plains tribes, like the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Ute, Comanche, who followed bison herds throughout the Arkansas River Valley area. Adobe was likely chosen by Charles, who had lived in Taos and was familiar with the material, and to complete the work the Bents brought workers north from Mexico. In either 1829 or 1830 a smallpox outbreak killed a significant number of the adobe workers, delaying construction of the original fort, but by either 1833 or 1834 the fort was operational. (Grinnell, Bent’s Old Fort and its Builders, 1923; Hyde, Life of George Bent, 62) The trading post saw significant traffic in goods from the Cheyenne and Arapaho, and William Bent supported this trade relationship by marrying Mestaa'ėhehe (Owl Woman) a Cheyenne Woman. Through the 1840s the fort flourished, establishing branches of the Bent-St. Vrain company at Fort St. Vrain along the Platte River and Adobe Fort on the Canadian River.In 1848, the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo brought the southern bank of the Arkansas into the United States, and the US-Mexico border shifted thousands of miles south. Bent’s once advantageous international border location suddenly became remote. The next year, a major outbreak of cholera decimated the Cheyenne and other tribes. Bent’s children fled the fort for the year to avoid the disease. Here, historical information diverges about what became of the fort itself. David Lavender, who wrote an early treatment of the goings-on at Bent’s Old Fort in 1954, holds that the fort was fully destroyed in 1849. James Calhoun, the Indian Agent in Santa Fe, reported that Bent set fire to the fort in October of 1849. (David Lavender, Bent’s Fort, 443 fn 1, 2) There is some speculation that this may have been an attempt to fumigate the building against cholera, or it may have been an intentional destruction of the fort to prevent its use by other parties (who those other parties may have been is also the subject of speculation). (Hyde, Life of George Bent, 97 fn. 20; Thompson, Life in an Adobe Castle, 1833-1849; David Lavender, Bent’s Fort, 338-339). However, anthropologist George Bird Grinnell in Bent’s Old Fort and its Builders casts some doubt on this narrative, noting that Indian Agent Thomas Fitzpatrick was present at the fort from December of 1849 to February of 1850. Bent also entertained offers to sell the fort in 1852, which would have been long after the 1849 “destruction” of the fort. The US government offered $12,000, which Bent rejected. Bent’s son George recalled that as the family left the fort for good in the fall of 1852, Bent rode back and set off an explosion that partially destroyed the adobe building. Lavender dismisses Bent’s recollections as “forgetful,” as George Bent did have a reputation later in life for embellishing tales from his childhood. (Lavender Bent’s Fort, 443 fn 3) Lavender also dismissed reports from the fall of 1853 which noted that Bent’s Fort had been “recently destroyed by the Indians” as misinformation. (Lavender, Bent’s Fort, 443 fn 1) Regardless of the timing of the fort’s abandonment and destruction, the Bent family eventually established a new fort along the Arkansas, west of what is now the town of Lamar, where Bent served as Indian Agent to the Cheyenne and Arapaho. (Hyde, Life of George Bent, 93-94; Grinnell, Bent’s Old Fort and Its Builders, 55, fn 95).
Although there are conflicting reports on how badly the fort was damaged during its abandonment there was sufficient integrity of the building for re-use as a stagecoach stop. (National Park Service Region Two, Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site Project, 12; Colorado Historical Society, An Inventory of the Papers of Bent’s Old Fort, 1994). In 1861 the Barlow-Sanderson Overland Stage Mail and Express Company began using the stop, moving Colonel Jared L. Sanderson into the building to manage the stop and serve food to travelers. Sanderson later recalled at least 9 useable rooms at the fort at the time of its use as a stage stop. (Arps, From Trading Post to Melted Adobe,1849-1920, 38-39). The fort hosted a postmaster starting in 1863. (Arps, From Trading Post to Melted Adobe, 1849-1920, 40).
In 1870, Otero County deed books note that the fort property was deeded from the US government to Julia Bent on September 20th. Whether Julia actually held possession of the fort is unclear—traveler Peter H. Scott arrived at the fort in 1870 to find inside the fort “a square with houses leaned up against the wall on the inside. The wall is about 10 feet high and the roofs of the shanties slope inward. The stables occupy one side of the square. Several lines of stage cross here and there is a P.O. in which I put a letter. There is a large herd of horses and mules and 400 cattle belonging to [M.B.] Price who lives at the fort.” (Peter G. Scott, “Diary of a Freighting Trip from Kit Carson to Trinidad in 1870,” The Colorado Magazine, 8 (July 1931): 147, 150-151, cited in Arps, From Trading Post to Melted Adobe, 1849-1920, 50). Julia sold the fort relatively quickly to John W. Prowers in 1872, and the last postmaster closed the office at the end of 1873 (Arps, From Trading Post to Melted Adobe, 1849-1920, 50-51; Otero County Deed Book 1, 186, cited in Stinson et. al., Historic Structures Report).
Prowers used the remaining elements of the fort as a stockade, hosting at least one major bull sale on-site in June 1875. Newspaper reports from the area also noted that Prowers lost “an adobe house, washed down, at Bent’s Fort,” in September of the same year. (Las Animas Leader June 18, 1875 & September 24, 1875.) By the 1880s homesteading had taken off in the area, and new arrivals scavenged bricks from the crumbling fort for their houses, barns, and chicken coops. (Seely, Pioneer Days in the Arkansas Valley in Southern Colorado and History of Bent’s Fort, 1932, 20; Josiah Ward, “Abandonment of the Historic Fort: Interview with A.E. Reynolds,” Denver Post, February 8, 1920 cited in Arps, From Trading Post to Melted Adobe, 1849-1920, 52). Prowers died in 1884 without a formal will, but did leave a “pencil draft” asking his executors to keep his property intact for ten years before making any changes to the estate. (“Pueblo Paragraphs,” Rocky Mountain News, February 27, 1884) The property containing the old fort thus continued to deteriorate; by 1890 the Rocky Mountain News reported the fort to be “a mass of ruins.” (Rocky Mountain News, May 7, 1890) Prowers’ heirs eventually sold the property to Leona Prowers’ widower Thomas Marshall in 1897, who shortly sold the property to A. E. Reynolds in 1900 (Otero County Deed book 44, pages 42, 57, 386, cited in Stinson et. al., Historic Structures Report).
Pivot to Preservation
The dawn of the twentieth century brought renewed interest in the “historic” fort ruins. A 1902 letter to the editor in the Rocky Mountain News corrected the News’ assertion that Bent’s Old Fort had crumbled to ruins. The letter-writer, Minnie E. Blake, disagreed, noting that her class of students in La Junta were able to make a sketch of the fort based on the ruins, and that the north and east walls were still standing. (Rocky Mountain News, February 27, 1902). In 1912, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) worked with the property owner, A. E. Reynolds, to place the first of two eventual markers on-site, a granite stone honoring the history of William Bent. Ironically one of the highlights of the unveiling of the stone was the opportunity for attendees to scavenge from the site. (“Unveiling of Santa Fe Trail Monument at Fort Bent,” La Junta Tribune, September 14, 1912). Reynolds indicated the intent to deed 4.5 acres of land containing the fort ruins to the La Junta chapter of the DAR in 1920, which the DAR commemorated by putting up another marker—this time a large stone archway marking the site entrance. (“Markers at Bent’s Old Fort,” The Manzanola Sun, May 21, 1920). The property was officially transferred to the DAR by Reynolds’ daughter Anna in 1926 (Mattes, From Ruin to Reconstruction, 1920-1976, 59).Further damage befell the ruins of the site in 1921 during a major flooding event on the Arkansas later known as the Great Pueblo Flood (“Biggest Flood in History of the Arkansas Valley,” The Lamar Register, June 8, 1921). Though the DAR had plans to encourage a reconstruction of the fort, as no funding materialized to support the undertaking, the site continued to disintegrate. (Kelleher, Making History: Reconstructing Historic Structures in the National Park System, 1998: 14) The DAR held on to the property until 1953, when plans were laid to hand the property over to the Colorado State Historical Society. The Historical Society completed their acquisition of the fort in April 1954, and wasted no time in beginning an archaeological survey that June. Led by Herbert W. Dick of the Anthropology Museum at Trinidad State Junior College, the excavation found evidence of distinct periodization, with evidence of prior burning events (possibly Bent fumigating the site in 1849 or the explosion in 1852) as well as cattle faunal remains dating from the time of Prowers’ ownership of the fort. (Dick, “The Excavation of Bent’s Fort Otero County, Colorado,” The Colorado Magazine, July 1956.) Dick’s field season ended with filling the fort ruins back in with dirt to prevent further deterioration, and the state built low adobe walls around the site to mark the foundation outlines. (“Proposes National Monument at Bent’s Fort in Colorado,” Middle Park Times, August 15, 1957)
At the time of its acquisition of Bent’s Old Fort, the Colorado State Historical Society was involved with two other historical reconstructions of frontier forts. The Society had recently rebuilt the ruins of Fort Garland in far southwest Colorado, which they opened as a museum in 1950. (“Fort Garland,” Colorado Encyclopedia) Nearly thirty years earlier, the Works Progress Administration had rebuilt Fort Vasquez Trading Post in Platteville, Colorado, just off the site of the original fort. (“Fort Vasquez,” Colorado Encyclopedia) When the Fort Vasquez reconstruction opened in 1937, it was based on little in the way of archaeological information and was primarily created to encourage historical interest in the area. The Historical Society was in the midst of assuming ownership of Fort Vasquez when the DAR approached them about taking on Bent’s Old Fort. Newspaper reports from 1960 imply some reconstruction did occur under the Society: a January 29, 1960 report in the Morning Sun noted that “the site contains about five partial restorations made by Colorado historical groups,” and a December 20, 1960 report from the Rocky Mountain News likewise claimed the site was “partially restored by the Colorado State Historical Society.” (“Park Service OK’s Old Bent’s Fort Historic Proposal,” Morning Sun, 48, January 29, 1960; “Historic Sites Declared U.S. Landmarks,” Rocky Mountain News, December 20, 1960). Exactly what the Society completed during their ownership of the Fort is not clear, but the advanced deterioration at Bent’s Old Fort meant full reconstruction was practically and financially prohibitive at the state level.
In 1957, at the behest of the Colorado State Historical Society, Senator John Carroll of Colorado inquired about the possibility of a site takeover by the NPS. (Kelleher, Making History, 15; “Proposes National Monument at Bent’s Fort in Colorado,” Middle Park Times, August 15, 1957) In 1958, Senator Carroll learned that Bent’s Old Fort was on a list of sites to be investigated under the National Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings, which would ultimately produce a list of sites considered nationally significant. Following the investigative survey, the Advisory Board on National Parks, Historic Sites, Buildings, and Monuments determined which of the recommended sites (if any) were appropriate for inclusion in the National Park System. The Advisory Board determined that Bent’s Old Fort was indeed nationally significant, but not because of its archaeological potential and intermittent ruins. Instead, it was the site’s association with the Santa Fe Trail and westward expansion that were viewed as exceptionally important. As such, the site would focus on commemoration rather than preservation. (Kelleher, Making History, 15) In 1960, Congress authorized the establishment of Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site, and by 1961 the State of Colorado deeded the fort to the US government. (Public Law 86-487, June 3, 1960; Otero County Deed Book 566, page 236; cited in Stinson et. Al., Historic Structures Report).
Although the Historical Society could not handle the scale of reconstruction needed at Bent’s, they continued taking on reconstruction projects elsewhere, opening Fort Vasquez as a museum in 1964 and Fort Garland Company Headquarters in 1968. Outside of publicly funded projects, a “reconstruction” of Bent’s Old Fort was built as a themed restaurant called “The Fort” outside of Morrison, Colorado in 1963. Colorado was not alone in the reconstruction fervor. Elsewhere in the US, the NPS was involved in several high-profile reconstructions. In 1955, Fort Clatsop on the Columbia River in Oregon was reconstructed by the NPS based on one of William Clark’s sketches. Not far upriver, reconstruction of Fort Vancouver in Washington, formerly a Hudson’s Bay Company post, began in the 1970s based on archaeological data gathered from its site. (“Fort Vancouver” and “Fort Clatsop,” National Park Service Websites; “Historic forts preserved,” Rocky Mountain News, April 19, 1970.) NPS was already in the business of managing reconstructions, recognizing how invested local and state supporters were in the growing heritage tourism sector. In keeping with both tourism trends and the hopes of local boosters, the NPS submitted their first master plan for the fort in 1963, explicitly committing to reconstruction as the agency’s goal for the site (Kelleher, Making History, 17.)
Considering Reconstruction
Soon after acquisition, development alternatives for the fort were explored by the National Park Service’s Midwest Regional office in Omaha, Nebraska. NPS development plans for the site describe how an “impressive external appearance of such a reconstructed fort in a restored setting of even a modest area would, it is felt, add greatly to visitor appreciation and understanding of the site.” (National Park Service Regional Director, Region Two to the Director, March 17, 1961 Bent-PH, as cited in Kelleher, Making History, 16.) While NPS continued to make progress studying the site for reconstruction, NPS historians were not of a single mind regarding reconstructions as a tool for interpreting the past. Interviewed in his retirement in 1986, former NPS Chief Historian Robert Utley noted that while he had initially argued strongly in favor of reconstructing the Fort, he came to regret his support of the idea:There's an insidious thing about reconstructions that goes beyond what I've mentioned, and that is that it goads the Park Service to put inordinate emphasis on interpretation in the sense of entertainment, instead of in the sense of making the resource (which is the Justification for a National Historic Site) understandable and meaningful to the visiting public. My feeling has always been strongly that the purpose of interpretation in the Park Service is simply to make the resource, whether it's historic landscape or historic fabric, meaningful to the public, give them an appreciation and an understanding of it. Any interpretation that gets between that resource and the visitor becomes entertainment. (Utley, 1986 interview transcript, 14)
The NPS issued its first Historic Structures Report for the fort in 1964, which offered a middle-ground approach between reconstruction and interpretation of the ruins as-is. The plan would be to preserve the archaeological remains by building a partial reconstruction around the exterior of the fort only, which echoed similar work completed by the state. The report cautioned that more data would be needed to complete a “full” reconstruction. Construction funds for the property were withdrawn at this time and a second Historic Structures Report was undertaken which attempted to summarize and rectify the historic and archeological data the NPS had collected into a workable vision of the reconstruction. (Committee Report on Western Military Forts, 1964, 20). There were conflicting eyewitness reports about nearly every aspect of the fort’s specific dimensions (see reference image 1, taken from Stinson et. Al., Historic Structures Report part 2) that were impossible to reconcile. Undaunted, this report also advocated for reconstruction. (Kelleher, Making History, 19-20). As these reports came before the Committee to Review Western Forts in 1965, the committee was split on the idea of reconstruction. Detractors to the reconstruction proposal worried that “the physical remains of Bent’s Fort, to us the real reason the site had been preserved and acquired by the NPS, would be totally obliterated by reconstruction on the site!” (Committee Report on Western Military Forts, 20, cited in Kelleher, Making History, 21-22).
In August 1967, Midwest regional personnel visited the fort site to discuss the feasibility of its reconstruction. The two key takeaways of the meeting were that the fort could and should be reconstructed as close to the “historic integrity” as possible, and that there would need to be a standalone visitor center built as well. This plan was given the greenlight by then-Director George Hartzog (NPS Internal memoranda collection). Although the intent was to begin immediately, budget constraints materialized in the next fiscal year that shelved the project. In the meantime, in 1969 Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site saw 12,400 visitors, a 10.4% increase from the 1968 numbers, and statewide for that year national park units saw a total visitation of just under 3 million (“Colorado’s Tourist Tide is Increasing,” Rocky Mountain News, volume 111, no. 113, August 13, 1969). The project came back online in 1972 when the Denver Service Center received a $50,000 appropriation from Congress to begin work on the reconstruction (Kelleher, Making History, 28). The Rocky Mountain News explicitly connected this appropriation to the pending bicentennial (and, state’s centennial), pointing out that the funds were intended to kickstart reconstruction by 1976. (“Four Colorado project funds are retained,” Rocky Mountain News, July 28, 1972.) In 1973, NPS requested an additional $300,000 for further planning and development of the recreation facilities at Bent’s Old Fort, which it received from Congress in 1974. (“Budget includes state projects,” Golden Transcript, January 29, 1973.)
Re-creation of a "unique symbol of western expansion"
George Thorson, design director of the Ken R. White Company, was selected as the lead architect for the project. Thorson would later summarize the experience of the project by contributing an article to the Colorado Magazine, which catalogs the process of reconstructing the fort. In it, Thorson recalled,The argument for reconstruction in this case, then, was two-dimensional. Architecturally, there was a long held conviction that the mere preservation of the surviving archaeological remains, even if technologically possible, would scarcely inspire onlookers. And, secondly, pictures and models of the fort in a nearby modern museum structure would be a poor substitute for the full scale re-creation of this unique symbol of western expansion in American history. (Thorson, The Architectural Challenge, 104)
Despite the full-steam ahead approach to reconstruction, some thought was put towards preservation of the archaeological ruins, including spraying them with “pencapsula” (a branded polyresin combined with mineral spirits) in an attempt to prevent further melting of the adobe, which the NPS had used at Salinas Pueblo that same year (National Park Service “Salinas Pueblo Missions, New Mexico: Architectural History”). According to the 1973 scope of work for the planned reconstruction, the NPS planned for a few small sections of the original adobe building to be preserved for interpretation, primarily the northeast bastion of room 104 and a mud wall in pantry 113. (Department of the Interior, Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site, F-3) However, the majority of the ruins were too unstable to save and interpret. Thorson operated primarily from research gathered by historian Dwight Stinson in developing the design of the new fort, which he calculated provided “roughly thirty percent of the necessary material” for the reconstruction. (Thorson, The Architectural Challenge, 109) Archaeological data provided additional evidence, but primarily Thorson relied on comparative analysis of adobe buildings and structures contemporary with the original fort, as well as other reconstructions:
The architects made a research tour of adobe structures in New Mexico in July 1973. Of particular interest were the pueblos at Zuni, Acoma, and Taos, along with the ancient adobe structure in Santa Fe and Taos. The Historic American Building Surveys drawings of New Mexico architecture of the 1930s were examined. Meetings were held with other architects, historians, manufacturers, and contractors familiar with modern adobe construction. A modern adobe reproduction of Bent’s Old Fort, the Fort Restaurant near Morrison outside of Denver, was studied for its adobe construction technique. (Thorson, The Architectural Challenge, 110)
Thorson knew from the outset that he had an incomplete picture of the dimensions of the Fort. “Although Abert’s roof plan drawings are the most reliable source on non-archaeological information,” he wrote after the fact, “some discrepancies became apparent.” Heights, thicknesses, diameters, and distances did not match between Lieutenant James W. Abert’s August 1846 “measured” sketch of the fort and the archaeological record. (Thorson, The Architectural Challenge, 111-114) Lab testing revealed that the original adobe had been composed of silt rather than clay, which contributed to its rapid deterioration. (Thorson, The Architectural Challenge, 115) Faced with the impossible task of reconstructing the fort out of unstable materials and with limited data, Thorson chose an admixture of concrete and adobe and designed a fort layout that conveyed “authenticity” at the cost of accuracy. Other contemporary requirements such as handrails, electric wiring, and central air were likewise incorporated into the building. Fatefully, Thorson also made the decision to have the walls made of stabilized adobe core with natural adobe plastering, which “would erode naturally and would be patched annually in the historic tradition.” (Thorson, The Architectural Challenge, 125) Work began over the summer of 1975, with the intent that it would be complete for the national Bicentennial (and Colorado’s Centennial) celebrations in 1976.
In a May 1976 site walk prior to opening, NPS staffer Wilfred Logan noted that several features of the newly built fort seemed to be inaccurate or unsuccessful reproductions “sufficient to provoke amusement” such as wood treated with alcohol to appear aged, artificially created wear and tear on stair treads, and lightbulbs that flickered to emulate candlelight (Kelleher, Making History, 34). The Rocky Mountain News also toured the site in advance and voiced a similar opinion:
From a distance in the bright sun of the Arkansas River valley the reconstructed Bent’s Fort gives the impression of being a shimmering mirage. Up close it takes on substance and reminds one of a Hollywood set. In other words, the National Park Service’s latest contribution to history is new, shiny and unreal. It needs patching and the erosion and the baking of a summer of relentless heat and the wear and tear of hordes of tourists to give the look and feel of authenticity. (Marjorie Barrett, “History rebuilt at Bent’s Fort,” Rocky Mountain News June 27, 1976)
Regardless of what seemed to some visitors like stagecraft, the “authenticity” of the reconstruction became a central component of the NPS’s perceptions of the site. The extensive research that had gone into fort construction was featured in several articles about the fort around the time of the reconstruction activities. (Majorie Barrett, “Famed Bent’s Fort to be rebuilt,” Rocky Mountain News, August 3, 1974; Terry C. Johnston, “Beads, buckskin and blackpowder,” The Tri-City Journal, August 6, 1975) The word “authentic” often appeared in NPS press and publications about the fort, although as Robert Utley would put it several years later, “There is nothing authentic about Bent’s Fort. There is lots that’s accurate about it. The authentic remains of Bent’s Fort were destroyed by the Park Service when the accurate replica of Bent’s Fort was built on top of it. And what you have there now, and what you have at the other reconstructions that the Park Service is so susceptible to, is a stage-set for living history.” (Utley interview transcript, 11)
The site opened to the public with a dedication ceremony on July 25, 1976, on target for the state’s massive Bicentennial-Centennial efforts. (“Bent’s Fort Dedicated,” Canyon Courier, July 29, 1976) Among a host of other historic activities planned by Colorado, Bent’s dedication by Governor Lamm that summer was the culmination of significant local effort to secure a total of $2.3 million in Congressional funds for the project. (Mary Gleason, “Colorado Takes Leadership Role in Bicentennial,” The Oredigger – School of Mines, April 22, 1975) Later that year, a replica prairie schooner that was part of the Bicentennial Wagon Train traveling to Valley Forge was sent to Bent’s Old Fort for permanent display. A full-size replica of the schooners that traversed the plains in the 1800s, the wagon was presented to the Colorado Centennial Bicentennial Commission by the Pennsylvania Bicentennial Commission and was then turned over to the National Park Service (“State Prairie Schooner to Stay at Bent’s Old Fort”, Douglas County News, December 2, 1976). Ironically despite the excitement of the finished reconstruction and the bicentennial, the park reported a 17.5% decline in visitation numbers from 1975 to 1976, likely due to construction hampering visitation during the first half of the year ("Visitation to National Park Areas Stabilizes,” Craig Empire Courier, February 9, 1977).
In December of 1976, the American Institute of Architects presented the fort with a special award due to its assessment that the fort was “reconstructed with careful attention to being historically correct.” Mershon Gimeno Construction Company and the NPS were also honored with the award. (“Award”, Rocky Mountain News, December 4, 1976; Thorson, The Architectural Challenge, 137, fn. 11). This assessment was based on assertions by NPS and other interested parties that the reconstruction was based on accurate information, although as even Thorson would have said, the fort was a combination of limited hard data and conjecture.
Historical research completed in the summer of 2025 by Jennifer Bryant and Poppie Gullett of the National Park Service Intermountain Regional Office.