Bent's Fort, Arkansas (AR), United States

Facts & Statistics
Place Name	Bent's Fort
Place Status (Type)	fort
Location	Arkansas, United States, North America
Latitude	unknown
Longitude	unknown

Bent's Fort , trading post of the American West, on the Arkansas R., in present-day Otero co., SE Colo., 5 mi/8 km ENE of La Junta, and c.15 mi/24 km above the mouth of the Purgatoire R. The trading company headed by Charles Bent and Ceran St. Vrain, one of the most successful in the West, also included William Bent and 2 other Bent brothers. They had their 1st post in the area in 1826 and in 1833 moved to the completed fort, often called Bent's Old Fort. Because William Bent was the manager and chief trader in all the years of its prosperity, it is also sometimes called Fort William. Within its adobe walls came all the famous mt. men of the later period, as the fort on the mt. branch of the Santa Fe Trail came to dominate the trade of all the Native Americans S of the Black Hills as well as that of the Mexicans and the arriving Americans. Kit Carson was a hunter here 1831-1842. S. W. Kearny and Sterling Price each briefly used the fort for their troops in the Mex. War. According to the generally accepted story, the Native Amer. trade fell off and William Bent attempted to sell the fort to the U.S. govt.; he reached no satisfactory conclusion and in anger abandoned the fort and set the powder in it on fire, partially destroying it. In any case the fort was abandoned by 1852. William Bent erected a new establishment farther down the Arkansas in 1853. That post (Bent's New Fort) he leased to the govt. in 1860. Fort Lyon was afterward built around it.