Bent's Fort Colorado

"Bent's Old Fort, Colorado"
USGS Aerial Photograph

Bents Old Fort Colorado 1833-1849

Seven miles east of La Junta on Colorado Highway 194, is the location of Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site. The fort site was dedicated on July 25, 1976. Over the years thousands of visitors to the site have been taken back in time to the years when the fort was in operation 1833/49. Visitors to the fort site can wander through the authentically reproduced fort, the replica of a once self-sufficient outpost and the center of the Southwestern trading empire.
Bent's Old Fort was an outpost of American civilization situated on the southwestern edge of the American frontier. The fort was located on the Mountain branch of the Santa Fe Trail, the crossroads of trade among the Indians of the plains, the trappers of the mountains, and the traders of the Southwest. Bent's Old Fort was the largest of all the trading posts in the mountain-plains region.