An Adobe Outpost

In 1833, Bent, St. Vrain & Company built a trading post on the semi-arid reaches of the Arkansas River on the U.S. border with Mexico. Few if any buildings in the American West approached Bent’s Fort in size and importance. Its walls were fourteen or more feet high and thirty inches thick, and except for some support timbers, everything was built of adobe. From Taos, 150 Mexican laborers were hired to do the work. Water was hauled from the river in barrels and dumped into huge pits, and straw and perhaps wool were mixed with sand, silt, and clay. The mud was trampled by oxen, packed into molds, and laid out to dry, producing tens of thousands of bricks in a striking example of cross-cultural cooperation.

Colorado · United States