Post by Doris McCraw
writing as Angela Raines
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| Photo property of the author |
This year they are celebrating the bicentennial of the Santa Fe Trail. One of the stops on the Mountain Route was Bent's Fort also known as Fort William.
Trade officially opened up with Santa Fe around 1821. The Santa Fe Trail touched the far Southeast corner of Colorado but the Mountain Trail went further north. Although more difficult to transverse than the southern route, it had the advantage of water most of the way.
By 1833 the Bent brothers, Charles and William, along with Ceran St. Vrain, had opened what we know as Bent's Fort on the northern side of the Arkansas River. At the time the river was the dividing line between Mexico and the United States.
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The fort was the only structure other than a blacksmith shop located in Kansas that one would find on the American side of the trail. Many mountain men, traders, Indians, and for a time the military all used the fort.
William Bent's first wife was Owl Woman of the Cheyenne, and he later married her sisters Yellow Woman and Island. It was from this connection that trade with the Indians grew.
In addition to the Bent's, the list of those who spent time within the walls of the fort reads like a who's who of the opening of the west. George Ruxton, John Smith, William Guerrier, Francis Parkman, Susan Magoffin, Francis Preston Blair Jr., Lieutenant James Aber, along with Kit Carson and Jim Beckworth.
The trade was not just with the locals, it was a worldwide concern trading goods from around the world. The languages spoken were English, Spanish, French along with the native languages.
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The Fort was extremely profitable through 1849. It was that year that a cholera epidemic spread across the plains wiping out a substantial number of people. (The epidemic years were 1846-1860.) It was in 1849 that the Fort burnt down. William Bent moved to a spot further about forty miles downriver and built Bent's New Fort.
Did William burn the fort to keep it from being used as a military fort? Perhaps he fired it because of the cholera epidemic that had taken the lives of some of his family. Maybe there was a reason we will never know. Regardless, the fort was a lifeline for so many in the early days of trade along the Santa Fe Trail.
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As Susan Magoffin says in her diary." It fills my idea of an ancient castle. It is built of adobes, unburnt brick, and Mexican style so far. The walls are very high and very thick with rounded corners." This reconstructed fort is a trip back to the early days of the country and is rich in history to be excavated. Perhaps one day we'll know what really happened when the fort was destroyed.
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Colorado and Women's History
