Interstate 40 west of Williams,...
Interstate 40 west of Williams, leaving the San Francisco Mountains.
Bent's Old Fort more than made up for the disappointments of arriving too late to tour Fort Larned and Dodge City in general. The Fort is a highly authentic reconstruction, built of original-type materials in the original manner, on the exact site of the excavated footings of the first Old Fort. The land where the Fort was situated was never farmed or otherwise developed; the small graveyard is undisturbed with at least one original marker still in place. No photographs exist of the original, which burned to the ground in 1849 (legend has it that William Bent blew up the fort in the midst of a cholera outbreak that swept the region and devastated the local Indian tribes). Fortunately, a young U.S. army topographical engineer, Lt. James Abert, spent extended periods at the Fort in both 1845 and again in 1846. And, during those stays, he made numerous drawings, maps and layouts, and paintings of the structure and surrounding area. Plus, many of the original business journals of Bent, St.Vrain & Company still exist, which aided in recreating the day-to-day ambience and the atmosphere of Bent's Old Fort.
The National Historic Site was established by Congress in 1960. The reconstructed fort was built of 18x9x4-inch adobe bricks and plastered with adobe-as was the original-and was completed in 1976. All furnishings and exhibits are period-correct and authentic, and the few concessions to the late-20th/early-21st centuries (modern restrooms, electricity, etc.) have been remarkably well camouflaged. Even the parking area and ticket office are located in a slight ravine about a quarter-mile from the fort-which is accessed by a paved trail-and are out of sight from the fort.
Saturday * September 27
Yes, we really enjoyed our visit, and, instead of a brief walk through, ended up spending at least three hours just prowling the place. We expected a faade, a Disneyland-Main-Street or Universal-Studios-type experience, but found something more akin to a time capsule, a place where we were seemingly transported back 160 or so years. For anyone who is a history buff and happens to be passing through southeastern Colorado, we heartily recommend stopping in at Bent's Old Fort.
Dead trains east of Williams,...
Dead trains east of Williams, AZ.
After our extended tour of the fort, we were again somewhat behind schedule, so it was time to return to reality. As we wandered back to the parking area where we left the Vette, we were met by one more sight that fit the yesteryear ambiance perfectly. We encountered a local rancher chatting with one of the Park Service caretakers when a pair of his oxen lazily wandered around the parked cars. We really had stepped into an entirely different world!
We'd selected Pueblo for the previous-day's final destination for no better reason than that it seemed like a comfortable day's drive from Dodge City along the route we were taking. As we headed back towards La Junta, we discussed our timetable and places we still wanted to see versus the absolute necessity of being back in Southern California by Sunday the 28th, and decided we'd be better off heading south towards Albuquerque rather than west towards Pueblo, Durango, and other old mining towns, as well as the Anasazi ruins in Mesa Verde National Monument-just a little north of the Colorado-New Mexico border. We gassed up at the Wallace Oil Company's Phillips 66 station (how could we resist a name like that?) and, on the west side of town, merged onto Highway 350, which would take us on an 80-mile southwest shortcut-once again paralleling the Santa Fe Trail's mountain route-to Trinidad.