Royalty-free images by Mike1 — No. 149 of over 1200 images
Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site, near La Junta, Colorado, September 5, 2018
I’ve shared a number of photos over the years about Bent’s Old Fort in Colorado and, in November 2011, wrote a fairly lengthy post2 on it and created a 4-minute video. We had visited the site earlier that year, in September, and, again, seven years later in the fall of 2018.
In 1831 or 1832 Charles Bent and St. Vrain formed a partnership, which in time became Bent, St. Vrain, and Co., and entered the Santa Fe trade. In the late 1820s or early 1830s, William Bent, who had apparently been trading independently, erected a large adobe fort on the north bank of the Arkansas River, 12 miles west of the mouth of the Purgatoire. At first named Fort William, it was also known as Bent’s Fort and finally as Bent’s Old Fort after it was partially destroyed and a new fort was built elsewhere. Elaborately constructed, it was eventually a massive adobe structure of quadrangular shape having 24 rooms lining the walls, supported by poles. Two 30-foot cylindrical bastions, equipped with cannon, flanked the southwest and northeast corners. The walls were 15 feet high and 2 feet thick and extended 4 feet above the building roofs to serve as a banquette and were pierced with loopholes. On the south side was a cattle yard, enclosed by a high wall. A self-sufficient institution, the fort was operated by about 60 persons of many nationalities and vocations, including blacksmiths, trappers and traders, carpenters, mechanics, wheelwrights, gunsmiths, cooks, cattle herders, hunters, clerks, teamsters, and laborers.3
Post Endnotes
- I am sharing some of my public domain images in periodic blog posts.
- Goad, Mike. “Bent’s Old Fort.” Exit78, November 8, 2011. https://exit78.com/bents-old-fort/.
- ibid
Series Notes:
- This image is also shared as public domain on Pixabay, Flickr, and Pinterest.
- Images are being shared in the sequence they were accepted by Pixabay, a royalty-free image-sharing site.
- Only images specifically identified as such are public domain or creative commons on our pages.
- All other images are copyright protected by me, creative commons, or used under the provisions of fair use.
