I grew up with Bent’s Fort in my backyard — or, at least, a few miles across the Arkansas River. I didn’t realize as a child that it was a National Park Service historic site; I thought it belonged to us, our community.
The adobe fort northeast of La Junta was as embedded in our landscape as the bends in the river, the melon fields and the boundless horizon. It was part of our Fourth of Julys, field trips, summer days, social studies and dear friends’ genealogies.
Imagine my surprise that this familiar fort was exalted enough to be officially designated as a National Historic Site by President Dwight Eisenhower’s signature in 1960. Over a decade later with funding from the Ford administration, the National Park Service (NPS) had reconstructed Bent’s Old Fort based on archaeological research done at the site.
That optimistic effort, as part of the nation’s 1976 Bicentennial, was used to demonstrate that there was important history out here in the West too. Coloradans and the park service celebrated the opening of Bent’s Old Fort on July 25, 1976, one week before our state’s centennial anniversary.
Now we are in another milestone year and Bent’s Fort continues to connect us. This April, impressive Las Animas High School students invited me to serve as the grand marshal of the 92nd Santa Fe Trail Days Parade where I witnessed a multigenerational, multiethnic day rooted in regional history. And in early May, I co-hosted a luncheon with the Sand Creek Massacre Foundation for Bent family descendants and former Bent’s Fort staff, focused on nearly 200 years of family genealogy recovered through decades of reconnecting at the national historic site.
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But, as I write this, Coloradans and preservationists like me are concerned about Bent’s Old Fort. I hear from community members and descendents several times each week. In recent years, the adobe structure has not been maintained and the park service only allows very limited access to the building at the site.
When asked, the NPS staff expresses concern for how imperfectly the fort was built and that it is a “reconstruction” or a “replica.” Reconstruction was a common practice in mid-century historic tourism and was part of the NPS-approved master plan since 1963. But, almost immediately after the fort was built, attitudes at the park service began shifting away from the original master plan, and some questioned whether reconstruction is good historic practice.
While I have a nearly insatiable appetite for nerdy philosophical debates about historic interpretation, there are much more important and tangible considerations. Notably, the structure at Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places and should be preserved for future generations because of its importance to American history.
Equally as important, it is an economic asset to the communities of southeastern Colorado. La Junta Mayor Joe Ayala told me that there is an immediate and direct downturn to local tourism numbers anytime Bent’s Fort is closed. The rural economies of the Lower Arkansas Valley have to hustle every day and can’t afford the luxury of slow-moving federal decisions that negatively impact the site.
The park service will share concepts, late this summer, for “alternatives” for the site as they contemplate its future. As we reflect on the bicentennial birth of this Bent’s Fort, we have choices. We can view it as “deficiencies” in “design and construction.” Or, we can, even with the realization that all historic sites are imperfect, take fuller advantage of the gifts we have inherited.
For example, let’s utilize a properly maintained historic reconstruction to tell a more expansive history and realize our yet-unfulfilled obligations to the entire 800 acres of cultural landscape including access from U.S. Highway 50.
Fifty years ago, we worked together to reconstruct Bent’s Fort with real purpose as part of our nation’s bicentennial to provide tangible expression of the history in this part of the world. It belongs to all of us and is historically connected to the larger constellation of NPS historic sites in the region: Sand Creek Massacre and Amache.
Let’s use this milestone year of dual anniversaries to come together with the same insistence and creativity for ensuring these histories are carried forward for future generations.
Dawn DiPrince, of Denver, is the president/CEO of History Colorado and the State Historic Preservation Officer.
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