Fort Union National Monument - April 20, 2003

Fort Union was an unscheduled stop on the trip. I actually did not know it was there. As I was traveling south from Pueblo, Colorado, to Carlsbad, New Mexico, I stopped at a rest stop off of I-25 in northern New Mexico, which turned out to be near Fort Union. The rest stop had a lot of information about it, and I really had nowhere I had to be, so I decided to have a look.

Fort Union has actually had three lives or incarnations; most of the ruins there and all of the ruins I took pictures of are from the third and last of these. Fort Union was established, originally, in 1851 to provide protection and facilities for travelers on the Santa Fe trail. The second fort was constructed beginning in 1862, and the third was constructed in 1863. Not much was constructed during the second fort.

The third fort took about 6 years to complete and became well known as a supply depot. Many civilians were employed in that capacity at the fort. Soldiers at the fort participated in many Indian skirmishes against the Apaches, Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Utes, and Comanches. After affairs were settled with the Indians, soldiers helped maintain the peace and with tracking down outlaws, mediating feuds, and quelling mob violence. (I kid you not, that is what the brochure says.) With the coming of the railroad thru Sante Fe, which is southwest of the fort, the fort was no longer needed and it was abandoned in 1891.

And that is a very brief history of the fort.

I took about two hours, maybe a little less, to walk about the fort. I met a man whose grandfather (or great-grandfather) was stationed at the fort - kind of neat but wierd to walk where you ancestors have. Really not much to the fort, but it was a very nice and sunny day.

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