Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site: Exploring Colorado’s Famous Santa Fe Trail Trading Post
One of the things we love most about traveling across America is stumbling across places where history suddenly becomes real.
Our stop near Lamar, Colorado, gave us exactly that opportunity when we visited Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site, an important trading post along the historic Santa Fe Trail.
Today, visitors can walk through the reconstructed fort, explore its trading rooms, workshops and living quarters, and get a surprisingly detailed look at what life was like at this busy frontier trading post during the 1800s.
And for history lovers like us, that made this a fascinating place to explore.
Staying at Sundance High Plains RV Park
While visiting the area, we stayed at Sundance High Plains RV Park.
This turned out to be a pretty interesting campground itself.
The property had beautiful landscaping with small gathering spaces, private seating areas and picnic spots scattered around the grounds. There was even a collection of dinosaur statues that gave the campground a little extra personality.
The RV sites had an arrangement we hadn’t encountered before. The trailers were parked back-to-back and slide-to-slide, with each RV’s patio facing in the opposite direction.
It seemed unusual at first, but it actually provided some privacy for each campsite.
Overall, we enjoyed our stay there and thought it was a pretty neat place.
Visiting Bent’s Old Fort
The real reason for this stop, though, was Bent’s Old Fort.
The fort was established in 1833 by brothers William and Charles Bent and their business partner, Ceran St. Vrain.
Its location was important.
The fort stood along the Arkansas River, which at the time formed part of the boundary between the United States to the north and Mexico to the south.
Bent’s Old Fort became an important stop along the Santa Fe Trail and a major center for trade.
Trappers, traders, Native Americans, soldiers, laborers, travelers and adventurers all passed through its doors.
Walking through the fort today gives you a glimpse into the complicated world that developed around this frontier trading center.
The Trading Room
One of the most important places inside Bent’s Old Fort was the main trading room.
This was where people exchanged goods through barter or credit.
During the 1830s, beaver pelts were valuable enough to earn the nickname “hairy banknotes.”
As beaver populations declined, buffalo hides became increasingly important to the trading economy.
Standing in the reconstructed trading room and imagining all the different people who would have gathered there makes it easier to understand just how busy this isolated fort once was.
The Dining Room and Social Life
Even in a remote trading post, there were social divisions.
That became particularly obvious at mealtimes.
The upper classes and their guests ate in the fort’s dining room, while many of the employees cooked in their own quarters or shared food prepared in a community cooking pot.
It’s one of those little details that makes historic places interesting to us. History isn’t only about dates and important events. It’s also about where people slept, what they ate and how they went about an ordinary day.
Inside the Fort Kitchen
The kitchen offered another fascinating glimpse into daily life.
Mexican and Native American women were employed at the fort as domestic workers. William Bent also enslaved a woman named Charlotte, who became particularly well known for her flapjacks and pumpkin pies.
When the fort was excavated prior to reconstruction, much of the original limestone kitchen hearth was still intact.
Throughout the fort, details like these help visitors imagine the people who actually lived and worked here rather than seeing the site as simply another old building.
William Bent and the Cheyenne
William Bent had particularly close ties with the Cheyenne.
He was known among the Cheyenne as Little White Man, and his reputation for fairness and respect helped the trading company maintain good relations with Plains tribes.
Bent also married a Cheyenne woman and spent considerable time with her family in their village rather than remaining exclusively in his private quarters at the fort.
The relationships between the traders and Native peoples were an important part of the fort’s story and of the larger history of commerce on the Plains.
Blacksmiths, Carpenters and Wagons
A trading post along the Santa Fe Trail needed much more than a room filled with merchandise.
The blacksmith shop was an especially busy place.
Behind it was an alley where wagons and animals could be brought in for repairs or shoeing. Beyond that were the wagon shed and the main livestock corral.
The fort also had a carpenter shop.
The craftsmen didn’t work exclusively for the fort. Travelers passing through could pay to have damaged wagons repaired or other items made.
Considering how far travelers were from anything resembling a modern repair shop, having these services available must have been incredibly important.
Warehouses Filled With Frontier Trade Goods
One entire side of the fort contained storage rooms and a powder magazine.
One warehouse held trade goods and necessities such as food and gunpowder.
Another was later used as a supply depot by the U.S. Army during the Mexican-American War.
A separate warehouse stored the furs brought into Bent’s Fort until they could be shipped east and sold.
There was even an indoor well.
The well room doubled as an ice house, with fresh water kept in barrels and ice stored below.
It was fascinating to see how many different functions had to fit inside one frontier fort.
Where the Fort’s Workers Lived
Several rooms were devoted to the living and eating quarters of the fort’s laborers and other employees.
There was also a cooking area where women could prepare meals for their families after completing their work in the main kitchen.
Exploring these smaller rooms helped give us a much better picture of Bent’s Old Fort as an actual community.
This wasn’t simply a military-looking structure standing on the plains.
People worked here.
People ate here.
People slept here.
Travelers arrived after long journeys and left again.
For a time, this was a busy little world of its own.
The Fort’s Towers
From the northeast bastion tower, we could look down over the corrals.
There was even a cannon in the tower, although it was used for signaling rather than defense. According to the history presented during our visit, the cannon never had to be fired to defend the fort.
Above the main entrance was another watchtower room that helped oversee activity around the post.
Famous Visitors at Bent’s Old Fort
The fort hosted its share of interesting travelers.
One was Lieutenant James Abert, a U.S. Army topographical engineer.
While recovering from illness at the fort, Abert studied and sketched the area’s plants and animals and created watercolors depicting life at Bent’s Fort.
His work later became particularly valuable because his drawings, plans and measurements helped provide information used during the fort’s reconstruction.
Another fascinating visitor was Susan Shelby Magoffin.
Magoffin was one of the early American women to travel the Santa Fe Trail, and she kept a diary documenting her experiences.
Her journal was eventually published as Down the Santa Fe Trail and Into Mexico and became an important firsthand account of life and travel in the Southwest during the 1840s.
Walking into the rooms where people like these actually stayed adds another dimension to visiting the fort.
What Happened to Bent’s Old Fort?
By 1849, trade at the fort was declining and cholera had become a serious problem.
William Bent eventually moved farther down the Arkansas River and established another fort.
The original Bent’s Fort was abandoned.
Fortunately, enough historical information survived to allow the site to eventually be reconstructed, giving today’s visitors the opportunity to experience this important stop along the Santa Fe Trail.
A Little Unexpected Bonus
Our visit even came with something we hadn’t planned.
A group visiting the fort had arrived in antique vehicles, so we got to spend some time admiring those as well.
That’s one of the fun things about road trips. You can plan where you’re going, but you never quite know what else you’ll find when you get there.
Is Bent’s Old Fort Worth Visiting?
If you enjoy American history, we definitely think it is.
Bent’s Old Fort isn’t simply a building you walk through and leave.
Room by room, you begin to understand how a frontier trading post actually functioned.
There were merchants negotiating trades, blacksmiths repairing wagons, cooks preparing meals, workers caring for animals, travelers stopping to rest and traders bringing furs and buffalo hides in from the Plains.
It’s also a place where several different worlds met—the United States and Mexico, Native American nations and Euro-American traders, soldiers and civilians, wealthy merchants and laborers.
That makes Bent’s Old Fort much more than an interesting old fort.
It’s a window into an important period of American history and life along the Santa Fe Trail.
For us, that’s exactly the kind of place that makes traveling across America so much fun.
We’ll see you down the road…and Over The Hills!
Continue the Journey
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