Junction Station, the first settlement at this site, suffered numerous Indian attacks like those that raged along the South Platte during the mid 1860s. To protect the crucial crossroads joining the South Platte River Trail with its Denver cutoff, the U.S. Army established Camp Junction in 1864, and in 1866 completed Fort Morgan, roughly the size of a city block. The post defended the trail, but traffic soon shifted north to the transcontinental rail corridor, and Fort Morgan was abandoned in 1868. Sixteen years later Abner S. Baker founded the present-day town and named it after the old battle station. Today Fort Morgan is one of eastern Colorado's most important cities and has anchored life on the plains for more than a century. From its opening in August 1923, Rainbow Arch Bridge drew praise for its visual elegance, and when it withstood a devastating flood twelve years later without a shudder, it also gained fame for sturdiness. The first bridge to employ James B. Marsh's open-spandrel design, Rainbow Arch survived a second flood in 1965, but its narrow roadway could not keep up with Fort Morgan's growing traffic. City officials closed the structure in 1987, but after a five-year rehabilitation effort it reopened to pedestrians and bicyclists in 1996. Now listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the 1,100-foot bridge remains one of the longest and grandest of its type.