Last updated: October 27, 2024
Article
Architecture born of earth and Colonization
NPS
Construction of Bent’s Old Fort was started in 1833, interrupted by smallpox epidemic, and completed probably in the spring of 1835. Presumably it was designed by Charles Bent with William assisting and in charge of construction. It was probably based on forts he had seen in the East, and then influenced by the Mexican-Indian pueblos he saw in the Mexican Territory. The 150 Indian workers they brought up from around Taos definitely effected the materials and construction technique. The adobe construction with wood vigas resulted in a castle-like fortress. The Fort was almost fireproof and the bastions at the two corners and the portholes along the battlement made it easy to protect. The materials for adobe bricks and viga beams probably came mainly from the vicinity of the Fort. Other materials like glass for windows would have been brought carefully along the Santa Fe Trail from the East. The Fort was self sufficient so the blacksmith could have made metal hardware and the carpenter built the "millwork" items.
For documentary information on the construction and design of Bent’s Fort, we have little more than George Bent’s statements to rely upon. Bent wrote in 1905 that his uncle Charles hired approximately 100 New Mexicans from Taos to produce the adobes for the fort. To make the adobes, a shallow mixing pit was created onsite where the mud and straw were mixed together by the feet of the workers and simple implements such as shovels and hoes. This adobe mixture was then packed into wooden molds by hand. One resident of Bent’s Fort in 1846 gave the dimensions of the adobes used in the fort as eighteen inches long, nine inches wide and four inches thick.
According to George Bird Grinnell, who presumably obtained his information from George Bent, Charles Bent “sent up some wagonloads of Mexican wool to mix with the clay of the [adobe] brick, thus greatly lengthening the life of the adobes.” However, Frank Delisle, a former Bent, St. Vrain & Co. employee who claimed to have superintended the fort’s construction, stated that the adobes “were moulded from clay and, mixed with chopped straw.” And fort visitor Matthew C. Field wrote that the post was “built of the simple prairie soil, made to hold together by a rude mixture with straw and the plain grass itself.” As for the large quantities of timber required for the fort’s construction, George Bent wrote that Kit Carson told him before the latter died in 1868 that “he was Employed by Bent & St. Vrain and was in charge of 12 men cutting Timber for the Fort.”
A significant event that stalled the construction of the fort was – again according to George Bent – an outbreak of smallpox. “My father, Wm. Bent, & [Ceran] St. Vrain were among the first to take the small Pox....My Father told me every body left except those that had the small pox.” Charles or William sent word to the Cheyennes and Arapahos to stay away from the fort until the danger of the disease had passed, at which time they would send for them. There is an intriguing possibility that this smallpox epidemic had its origins in the East. Smallpox broke out among the Shawnee Indians, through whose lands the Santa Fe Trail passed, during the summer of 1831, and it had spread to the Delawares by October. One individual at the Shawnee Methodist Mission on October 21 observed that “the small pox was raging among the different tribes, and the Indians flying in different directions.” The Delawares were well-known for their frequent hunting and trapping trips to the Far West, including the Upper Arkansas. Had a party of Delawares, or perhaps even an Anglo employed by the Bents and St. Vrain, unwittingly carry the dreaded smallpox with them from the Missouri border? Was it indeed this epidemic that struck those working on the construction of Bent’s Fort? If so, this would provide another important clue for arriving at a construction date.
As seen above, several sources agree that it required four years to complete the adobe fort, which time frame would have to include the stoppage caused by the smallpox outbreak mentioned by George Bent. However, how these sources arrived at this information is another matter. The National Park Service reconstruction of Bent’s Fort required approximately 14 months to complete. Yet the reconstruction involved numerous modern processes which were unavailable to the original builders. Trucks hauled the timbers, power tools allowed numerous shortcuts in areas that were hidden from public view, and a special adobe-making machine – a contractor’s invention – mass produced adobe bricks. On the other hand, the 1976 reconstruction replicates the fort of 1846, and archaeological evidence suggests that the fort had been expanded sometime before this date. Thus the initial fort complex was presumably smaller, which should have taken less time to build. Still, it seems unlikely that the original fort could have been completed in less than a year’s time, particularly as both the making of adobes and the laying of them were restricted to warm weather months (and dry ones as well); it took approximately a week of dry hot weather for the adobe bricks to cure properly. Yet the claim of four continuous years is hard to accept; the laborers brought from New Mexico doubtless knew well the craft of adobe construction and, one would assume, carried out their task with relative dispatch and efficiency.
This New Mexican influence, not incidentally, was strongly reflected in the fort’s design, for Bent’s Fort closely resembled the plazas (fortified towns) and haciendas (rural ranch quarters) of northern New Mexico. These one-story adobe complexes were generally square or rectangular, with the several dwellings or rooms opening onto a central courtyard or patio. The rear walls of the individual rooms formed a single outside wall, which was windowless. George Bent correctly described the rooms of Bent’s Fort as being “built against the walls in the Mexican fas[h]ion.” A double gate at the entrance hall, or zaguán, provided the only access. Additionally, haciendas incorporated an adjoining rectangular corral for livestock in the rear of the structure. Another important feature of many of these fortified complexes was a torreón (defensive tower).
Some villages boasted two torreóns, very much like Bent’s Fort with its two towers or bastions at diagonally opposite corners. In fact, Bent’s Fort’s design may also be traced to the Spanish Colonial presidios (garrisoned forts) scattered across the northern frontier of New Spain, which were often built of adobe and featured a central plaza and one or more cylindrical towers at their corners. Like the plaza and hacienda, the chief aim behind the design of the presidio was defense against Indian attack, and so it was for Bent’s Fort as well. One fort visitor recognized this function in 1845, writing that the post was built “more with the purpose of being a place of security against the treachery of Savages than a place of importance in the eyes of any nation.”
At least three historians have made serious efforts to come to grips with the gaps and contradictions in the historical record regarding the establishment of Bent’s Fort. David Lavender came to the conclusion that the adobe fort was begun in 1833 and completed in 1834. LeRoy R. Hafen’s extensive research on the subject also pointed to the year 1833, although he did not address a time-frame for the actual construction phase of the fort (Hafen, it should be noted, did not consider Cheyenne oral history, what he called “Indian stories,” to be “authentic records”). Janet Lecompte indicated that the adobe fort was not constructed before 1834. Much more recently, archaeologist Douglas C. Comer, based on his analysis of ceramic sherds excavated in two historic dumps at Bent’s Old Fort, has arrived at a construction date of “about 1831.”
Ultimately, the only thing that is truly certain concerning the establishment of Bent’s Fort is that it was operational by August 6, 1835, when Col. Henry Dodge’s expedition of U.S. dragoons arrived at the trading post. Bent’s Fort is noted in the journals of four members of this expedition. In fact, one scribe, Capt. Lemuel Ford, drew a small map of the area to accompany his journal. This important map, first published by Janet Lecompte, not only pictures Bent’s Fort, but also what is believed to be Bent’s picket post and Gantt’s fort.
Content adapted from Mark L. Gardner's 2004 NPS Historic Resource Study: "Bent's Old Fort on the Arkansas."