06/03/2026
Colorado history buffs: if visiting Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site is on your bucket list, you might want to plan a trip sooner rather than later. On a recent visit I learned that it is in such disrepair that they are considering leveling it altogether.
The fort was built in the early 1830s as a trading post with the Native Americans. It became an important stopping place on the northern branch of the Santa Fe trail and its nearby replacement offered refuge to gold seekers heading west during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush The site of the fort, just outside La Junta, is undeveloped so it's easy to imagine just how lonely its earliest visitors must have felt.
The Park Service offers excellent guided tours.
In the 1840s the Arkansas River was the border between territory claimed by the United States and Mexico. Located along the river, Bent's Fort was an adobe trading post on the Santa Fe Trail, where traders, trappers, travelers, and the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes came together in peaceful terms for....
