Jolie Anderson Gallagher - Colorado Forts: Historic Outposts on the Wild Frontier

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2013 by Jolie Anderson Gallagher

All rights reserved

First published 2013

e-book edition 2013

Manufactured in the United States

ISBN 978.1.61423.903.1

Library of Congress CIP data applied for.

print edition ISBN 978.1.60949.660.9

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For all the dedicated curators, librarians and museum volunteersthanks so much for assisting me with my research. I also want to thank Carol Turner for reading my drafts and keeping me sane during difficult times. And finally I must acknowledge my marvelously supportive husband, Sean Gallagher. He read my drafts, created maps, took photos and generally held down the fort while I wrote.

INTRODUCTION

Frontier forts played a major role in settling Colorado. These forts included upward of fifty structures built throughout the statelog stockades, trading posts, shelters, stage stations, military installations, temporary camps and cantonments. A few were business establishments, such as Bents Old Fort in the fur-trading days. Many more were military posts, such as Fort Garland and Fort Lyon, erected after the Mexican-American War. Still others were short-lived stockades and shelters, used for protection against Indians who so desperately tried to push out white settlers.

Although this book uses fort to describe a wide variety of posts, it also uses terms for specific types of constructions. A blockhouse is a shelter of stacked logs. A stockade is similar in construction, except it includes posts fixed upright in the ground. A picket post is a group of cabins surrounded by a log barrier, with each log sharpened to a point on the top. A camp is a temporary base composed of tents or rude cabins. A cantonment is a large military camp, usually for winter quarters but sometimes occupied longer. And a fort, when used in military terms, is a more permanent base with sturdy buildings.

In addition to describing the fort structures, this book tells the stories of the people who occupied themthe struggles and achievements of early explorers, frontiersmen, fur traders, soldiers and their wives. These early pioneers braved brutal weather and hostile enemies to build not just the forts but also new lives for themselves. Through the years, their trails would become our highways, and their forts would become our city centers, museums, hospitals and schools.

CHRONOLOGY