Canyons and Plains
“He had seen the end of an era, the sunset of the pioneer. He had come upon it when already its glory was nearly spent. So in the buffalo times a traveller used to come upon the embers of a hunter’s fire on the prairie, after the hunter was up and gone; the coals would be trampled out, but the ground was warm, and the flattened grass where he had slept and where his pony had grazed, told the story.
This was the very end of the road-making West; the men who had put plains and mountains under the iron harness were old; some were poor, and even the successful ones were hunting for a rest and a brief reprieve from death.
It was already gone, that age; nothing could ever bring it back. The taste and smell and song of it, the visions those men had seen in the air and followed, – these he had caught in a kind of afterglow in their own faces, – and this would always be his.”
― A Lost Lady
In the late 1800’s, my mother’s family moved to Bristol, Colorado. As with many other families, it was a gradual family migration westward over a period of one hundred years. My great grandfather was a Wright and my great grandmother a Lewis. Both families immigrated to the United States in the 1600’s from Great Britain. The Lewis family fought in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War, on the Union side. At the same time, the Wrights were also making their way westward. After landing in southern Colorado the Wrights endured the Dust Bowl, The Great Depression and both world wars.
When my dear friend, Priscilla Waggoner, the editor of the Kiowa County Independent, asked me to do a photo shoot of Bents Fort for a Colorado tourism website called, Canyons and Plains. I was thrilled for the opportunity to head south and retrace a piece of my family history.
An excerpt from the website from Ms. Waggoner:
History literally comes alive at Bent’s Fort on the Arkansas River near La Junta. Painstakingly reconstructed, this impressive, two-story adobe fort gives real time experience of 1840s life at this famous trading post on the Santa Fe Trail. Visitors are free to roam from room to room while interpretive guides provide details, demonstrations and memorable stories about the extraordinary people who lived and traded at this amazing place. Bent’s Fort is a national historic site operated by the National Park Service.
Described as a castle or a “merchant ship on the High Plains,” Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site features a remarkable, large two story adobe fort reconstructed from drawings, letters, surveys of the historic site and other extensive methods, all compiled to recreate the famous 1840s fur trading post on the mountain branch of the Santa Fe Trail. For the years it was in operation, Bent’s Fort was a flourishing trade center and gathering place where traders, trappers, travelers, and the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes came together in peaceful terms for trade. It was years ahead of its time, not only in the integrity of its architecture and location as the tallest building between Missouri and the Pacific Ocean but also in the cultural diversity and enrichment promoted on a daily basis
Today, living historians recreate the sights, sounds, and smells of the past with guided tours, demonstrations and special events like the “Living Encampment” where visitors can learn from site interpreters about trading sessions, Indian sign language, freighting with oxen, carpentry, and blacksmithing, making of adobe bricks, cooking over an open hearth, historic gardening, bullet making, or hide skinning. Visitors are also invited to browse from room to room as they get a feel, first hand, of life at the fort in the 1840s. A store is also on site where books, common products, and goods appropriate to the time are sold to the public.
The website address is: Canyons and Plains, Bents Fort
*Note, the first image of the front view of Bents Fort is not mine..and there seems to be some confusion under gallery- photographers concerning designated images…some of my photos are listed under the other photographers.
