FORT UNION NATIONAL MONUMENT
Photos
Upcoming 2001 events:
July 16: First Fort Tours
July 28-29 Cultural Encounters on the Santa Fe Trail
August 18: Evening Program
September 27-30: Santa Fe Trail Symposium
Fort Union National Monument (1851-1891). The third Fort Union shown off in the distance from NM State Hwy 161.
July 2000 (US Interstate 25, Exit 366, and 7.6 miles northwest on NM State Hwy 161)
July 2000
Once the largest post in the Southwest, the third Fort Union was established to control the Jicarilla Apaches and Utes, to protect the Santa Fe Trail, and to serve as a supply depot for other New Mexico forts. The arrival of the railroad and the pacification of the region led to its abandonment in 1891.
West of the third Fort Union, near the base of the mesa, are the ruins of the Fort Union Arsenal, shown slightly right from center below the trees. The first Fort Union was built at this location in 1851. In 1867, this wooden fort was razed and the adobe Arsenal erected. Ordnance supplies, weapons and ammunition were freighted from larger arsenals in the east, stored here or distributed to other frontier forts. Damaged weapons were repaired in arsenal shops. This Arsenal played a vital role in supplying armaments to military posts throughout New Mexico until 1882.
Soon after the Civil War began, a Confederate army marched out of Texas aimed at the first Fort Union and gold-rich Colorado beyond. Troops at Fort Union built a star-shaped fieldwork, the second Fort Union shown towards the bottom of this aerial photo, to meet this threat. Hastily constructed of green logs and earth, the fortifications were damp and stuffy. In March, 1862, a battle fought in Glorieta Pass -- seventy miles to the southwest -- thwarted the Confederate invasion. The star fort was subsequently abandoned with construction of a Third Fort Union, shown in the photo above the second Fort Union.
The second Fort Union, shown from ground level -- note the raised ground.
Rabbit near the entrance of the Visitor Center and Museum.
The Santa Fe Trail, shown in the map above, was opened by William Becknell in 1821 when New Mexico was still part of Mexico. It became the major trade route from Missouri River towns to Santa Fe and connected to the much older El Camino Real-Chihuahua International Trail, which started in Santa Fe and ended deep in Mexico. The two main branches, the Cimarron Cutoff and the Mountain Branch, joined at Watrous. The difficulty of bringing caravans over rocky and mountainous Raton Pass kept most wagon traffic on the Cimarron Cutoff of the Santa Fe Trail until the 1840's. Afterwards, the Mountain Branch became more popular with traders, immigrants, gold-seekers, and government supply trains. Travel over the Trail ceased with the coming of the railroad in 1879.
This was the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail, looping down the Raton Pass to join the Cimarron Cutoff (from left to right) seven miles south of here. From 1821 until the coming of the railroad, the Santa Fe Trail was the major link between the United States and frontier New Mexico.
Years before there was a fort, huge freight wagons rumbled past this place en route to Santa Fe (notice the depression from center to lower right that was created from the usage of the Trail).
Page from a pamphlet issued by the famous freighting company Russell, Majors and Waddell.
Replica of the wagons used during the time period of the forts.
Click here for the next page of Fort Union photos.
For further information on Fort Union, call (505) 425-8025, write the Superintendent at Post Office Box 127, Watrous, New Mexico 87753, or send e-mail.
August 19, 2000: An evening at Fort Union. Evening tours of the fort will be conducted. Historic vignettes will lend a ghostly air to this yearly event.
Check out our other photos on Fort Craig National Historic Site, our Civil War photos, and the Apache Battleground, where Captain Stanton, for whom Fort Stanton was named after, was killed
Additional photos of other Civil War sites will be added as we visit them.
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