Pueblo Trading Post

The Pueblo Trading Post, also known as Fort Pueblo and El Pueblo, stood on the American side of the Mexico border and was established in 1842 by French and American traders from Bents Fort, seventy miles east on the Arkansas River. It gave them access to the Ute tribes and placed them closer to Taos, Mexico (New Mexico), a source of trade goods and Mexican masons for laying adobe bricks. The post became a busy meeting place where trappers, traders, and Native Americans met, negotiated, and traded buffalo hides, beaver pelts, crops, liquor, guns, tools, and trinkets. Its population changed constantly, with mixed and varied relationships among men, women, and children, and its original founders were transient and did not remain long. Among the most enduring figures were three Mexican citizens who came north to take advantage of the new post: trapper Marcelino Baca, trader Charles Autobees, and Teresita Sandoval, the companion of a rancher. Many others also came from Mexico to build and operate the post. In 1854, after a Ute tribe attacked and eliminated all the inhabitants at the site, the post was abandoned; Baca, Autobees, and Sandoval were living nearby and trading there at the time but were not present during the attack.

Pueblo, Colorado · United States