Fort Garland Museum & Cultural Center

08/07/2026

Heading to Fort Garland Museum & Cultural Center this summer? You could win the ultimate family adventure! Scan the code at our front desk and you could win a FREE Family Fall Weekend Getaway in Colorado Springs! 🏔️🍂

The Prize Package includes:
🛏️ A 2-night hotel stay at Hampton Inn Colorado Springs (Oct 2–3, 2026 for 2 adults & 2 kids)
🤸 4-pack of passes to Air City 360 Adventure Park
🪂 4-pack of indoor skydiving passes to iFLY Colorado Springs

How to Enter:
1️⃣ Visit Fort Garland Museum between now and September 7, 2026 (Kids 18 & under get in FREE!)
2️⃣ Scan the QR code at the front desk.
3️⃣ Fill out your info for your chance to win!

No purchase necessary. Must be 21+ and a parent/guardian of a child under 18. One entry per household. Non-transferable.

08/07/2026

08/06/2026

"While the 250th and 150th anniversaries mark important milestones in the histories of the United States and Colorado, we must broaden our understanding of America’s past by recognizing the Indigenous, Hispano, and Chicano communities whose roots in Colorado and the Southwest long predate the country and statehood...
..There is a saying among Chicanos in the Southwest: “I didn’t cross the border. The border crossed me.”

Check out this insightful article, Colorado Turns 150, but Our Story Began Long Before That, from Eric Carpio, Chief Community Museum Officer for History Colorado, director of the Fort Garland Museum and Cultural Center, and HECHO’s Hispanic Conservation Leadership Council member. Published by HECHO at

By Eric Carpio, Chief Community Museum Officer for History Colorado, director of the Fort Garland Museum and Cultural Center, and HECHO’s Hispanic Conservation Leadership Council member.    While the 250th and 150th anniversaries mark important milestones in the histories of the United...

08/04/2026

🎒 Back-to-school has arrived and Fort Garland Museum & Cultural Center has your Fridays covered! We offer engaging Friday classes for students enrolled in grades 1 to 7 throughout the fall from September 11th - December 4th, 2026.

Don't miss out on exciting learning themes like ⛰️ Celebrate! Colorado

Celebrate 150 years of Colorado with an adventure through the Centennial State! Explore towering mountains, local wildlife, gold rush history, and the inventions, art, and cultures that make Colorado unique. From hands-on activities to fun facts and games, this class is packed with Rocky Mountain-sized excitement!

Register today and receive tuition assistance up to 70% off total tuition.
https://historycolorado.jumbula.com/FallFridays2026/FortGarlandHandsOnHistoryFallFridayClasses2026

08/03/2026

View of the restored old Fort Garland in Fort Garland, 1933-1968. Taken by Wolle, Muriel Sibell, 1898-1977. Denver Public Library Special Collections, X-4040

08/01/2026

From the ponderosa to the piñon, from the top of Trail Ridge Road to the adobe of the San Luis morada, I've been shaped by the land of this place. I've breathed in the fresh-air relief of Lincoln Hills, and I've wept through the smoke of wildfire skies. I've eaten melons and chiles straight from the field, and I've foraged for wild raspberries along the Squirrel Creek Trail.

Wallace Stegner noted that whatever landscape we first experienced as a child would always be our gauzy lens on the world. Lucky for me, the wildness of Colorado and its boundless blue sky have given me a vision for freedom and the kind of strength that makes most things feel possible. At History Colorado, we talk a lot about this feeling. There's a Spanish word “querencia,” which isn't directly translatable, but it's this sense of knowing you belong and are rooted in a place. This is what it means to be of Colorado—not just from here.

As we mark 150 years of statehood and imagine our next 150, History Colorado knows that we must be audacious enough to hold the vast and wild history of our humanity in this place that we call home. We understand the joy and solemnity of our obligations: to tell the truth, to archive the evidence, to memorialize the dead, to celebrate our traditions, to remember our ancestors, to pass on our practices, to preserve our places, to build new knowledge, to teach the young, and to shape a better future.

Colorado, as we honor your milestone anniversary, we know that you are ageless. History Colorado is grateful to work alongside the many communities we love to steward this state we love as we create the best possible futures. Together, we are Colorado.

—Dawn DiPrince, President/CEO of History Colorado and State Historic Preservation Officer
--
Colorful Colorado, captured as only photographer John Fielder could. History Colorado, 2023.1.16; .675; .1599; .1900; .5360; .5395

08/01/2026

Celebrate Colorado's 150th birthday with Fort Garland Museum ⭐ TODAY August 1st is Colorado Day and we have an entire line up of exciting family-friendly fun to enjoy while commemorating this one-of-a-kind anniversary! Museum admission will be FREE all day, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

Visit and enter the Family Fall Weekend Getaway Contest 🌻 for a chance to win to a 4-person weekend of fun in Colorado Springs!

Plus, join us from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM for:

🎨 Artisan Market featuring local vendors
🌯 Food Trucks serving up tasty bites
🎺 Live music
🇺🇸 Exhibition Opening of O Say Can You See
🧱 Unearthing Futures Exhibition On View

This year is especially significant, as Colorado’s Sesquicentennial (150th) coincides with America’s Semiquincentennial (250th), marking a once-in-a-generation Sesquisemiquincentennial ⭐ As the only state commemorating these twin anniversaries in 2026, Colorado has a unique opportunity to reflect on our shared past, celebrate the stories that connect us, and imagine the future we will build together.

07/31/2026

A long-running debate about the origins of moose in Colorado could finally be settled thanks to newly published research by an interdisciplinary team that includes Chance Ward, M.S. (Lakota), History Colorado’s NAGPRA collections coordinator. The team combined Indigenous knowledge, including artwork and oral histories about moose, with archaeology and paleontology to determine that the mammals were present in the southern Rocky Mountains hundreds of years before their reintroduction to the area in 1978—and could’ve been around since the Early Holocene Era.

These findings have the potential to change modern ecosystems management strategies to include Tribal practices, and the multifaceted approach to uncovering the moose’s past may also be applied to other animals to support conservation in the future.
--
Black and white photograph depicting a bull moose silhouetted against a mountain lake under an evening sky. Fred M. Mazzulla Collection, History Colorado 2022.57.26049

07/31/2026

“[A] public national memorial to commemorate the historic role played by [this] fort in the opening of the West” proclaimed the legislation President Dwight Eisenhower signed into law in 1960, designating Bent's Old Fort in southeastern Colorado as a National Historic Site.

After an extensive restoration and rebuilding project overseen by the National Park Service, the Bicentennial dedication of the fort’s reconstruction on July 25, 1976 recognized the important role Bent’s Old Fort played in our state’s history.

Now, on the fiftieth anniversary of that dedication, the fort is the subject of passionate preservation debate. History Colorado President/CEO Dawn DiPrince recently addressed this controversy as well as the future of the fort in light of the philosophical debates around historic preservation of the site. Read more, in her op-ed published in the Colorado Sun at

The reconstructed fort celebrates its 50th anniversary this month, and now is the moment to decide its path forward.

07/30/2026

🇺🇸 Join us on Saturday, August 1st - Colorado's 150th Anniversary - for the opening of O Say Can You See, a new fiber art exhibition honoring the service of Buffalo Soldiers at Fort Garland during Colorado's transition to statehood.

O Say Can You See will offer a thoughtful reimagining of the Colorado state flag through the creation of a large-scale fiber collage hand-crafted from reclaimed textiles by artist Chloé Duplessis, alongside an original 37 star flag which flew over Fort Garland 150 years ago.

O Say Can You See illuminates public memory, identity and civic belonging, and creates space for audiences to reflect on the rooted significance of Black military service and the contributions of service members to the American West and our country's shared history.

10:00am - 11:30am, August 1
This event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP at: https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/8918000/RSVP-for-O-Say-Can-You-See-Exhibit-Opening-Artist-Talk