Last updated: December 16, 2025
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Plan Like A Park Ranger: Visiting Bent's Old Fort
NPS Photo
Top 10 Tips
These insider tips will help you plan for the best visitor experience at Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site. Click the drop-down menu for more information.
From the parking lot to the reconstructed fort entrance is a one-quarter mile paved pathway. Around the fort perimeter and inside the plaza the loose sand may require extra exertion and stability measures for visitors with accessibility needs.
When visiting any of our sites remember to wear good walking shoes, dress for the weather, and bring a water bottle. Check out the National Park Service trip planning guide for more information.
Cell phone service at the fort is limited. Download the NPS app before you arrive to enhance your visit.
Entry into the reconstructed fort is limited to the central plaza on scheduled days. For your safety respect all closures and restrictions. Guided tours provide access into additional areas. More Information>
The design of the reconstructed fort fails to meet accessibility, fire, and life-safety requirements of 1976. A lack of code compliant components such as emergency lighting, illuminated exit signage, panic hardware on doors, and outwardly swinging exit doors results in a limitation of 49 occupants for visitor operations within the reconstructed fort. More Information>
Leashed pets are welcome in most of the park but are limited to the plaza inside the Fort. Additionally, pets should not be left unattended. Summer heat poses a threat to pets left in vehicles.
Complete your visit by checking out the Western National Parks Association Park Store. The Park Store at Bent's Old Fort offers many of the same trade goods that were exchanged for bison robes and other peltries at the fort in 1846. A visit to the store links you to the past when Bent's Fort was part of a thriving commercial trading empire. In addition to other souvenirs, you can purchase replicas of the same goods offered by the Bent brothers and carried along the Santa Fe Trail.
Bent's Old Fort is the beginning of a story that stretches across two other national park units in Southeast Colorado and one in Northeast New Mexico. Extend your experience by visiting Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site and Amache National Historic Site, each approximately a one hour drive from Bent's Old Fort. Just across the state line in New Mexico, Capulin Volcano National Monument offers sweeping views and the opportunity to get a close up experience on an extinct volcano.
Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site explores the story of the Bent, St. Vrain and Company and their trading outpost on the Arkansas River. The fort was located along the northern Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail. The Santa Fe National Historic Trail preserves sites east and west of the fort that further explore this story.
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For additional information about visiting Southeast Colorado, check in with La Junta Tourism and learn more about the Canyons & Plains region.