DAR Entrance Arch

The 1930 DAR entry Arch

NPS Photo

Quick Facts

Location:

East of the park entrance road along State Highway 194.

Significance:

Marking the former entrance to the park, the monument was erected by the DAR in 1930

Amenities

1 listed

Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits

Perhaps the most visible reminder of the Daughters of the American Revolution’s (DAR) role in preserving the Bent’s Old Fort site in the early years of the Twentieth Century is the gateway arch they erected at the entrance in 1930. According to the Chapter’s October 1929 meeting minutes, the arch was the brainchild of the Colorado DAR’s State Regent, who “asked our chapter to do some one big thing this year and suggested we build an arch at the entrance of Old Fort Bent”. The members welcomed the suggestion and got right to work, and by January 1930 they had commissioned a blueprint and drawing of the structure from La Junta city engineer George Hine. The arch was dedicated in the summer of 1930. Interestingly, in the first half of the twentieth century, there was not yet a public consensus on what to call the fort. It appears in contemporary sources in varying ways, including “Fort Bent,” “old Fort Bent,” and “Bent’s Fort.” Calling the site “Bent’s Old Fort” helped distinguish the site from Bent’s New Fort, a stone fort William Bent constructed in 1853 at Big Timbers (seven miles west of present-day Lamar, Colorado) to continue trading with Plains Tribes. By inscribing the name in large letters across the archway at the site’s entrance, the DAR likely helped to further standardize how the public—and eventually the National Park Service—would identify the site.

Today the arch is reached by a roadside pull off on State Highway 194 and also hosts two other DAR era historic markers.

Tags: bent's old fort national historic site, daughters of the american revolution, monument, roadside architecture, santa fe trail