Fort Union National Monument
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| Fort Union National Monument | |
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| IUCN Category V (Protected Landscape/Seascape) | |
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| Location: | New Mexico, USA |
| Nearest city: | Las Vegas, NM |
| Coordinates: | |
| Area: | 721 acres (2.91 km²) |
| Established: | April 5, 1956 |
| Total Visitation: | 13,117 (in 2004) |
| Governing body: | National Park Service |
- Fort Union redirects here; for the Fort Union on the North Dakota/Montana border, see Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site
Fort Union National Monument is a unit of the National Park Service located in Watrous, New Mexico, USA. The national monument was founded on April 5, 1956.
The site preserves the second of three forts constructed on the site beginning in 1851, as well as the ruins of the third. Also visible is a network of ruts from the old Santa Fe Trail.
There is a visitor center with exhibits and a film about the Santa Fe Trail. The altitude of the Visitor Center is 6760 feet (2060 m). A 1.2 mile (1.9 km) trail winds through the fort's adobe ruins.
Santa Fe trader and author William Davis gave his first impression of the fort in the year 1857:
Fort Union, a hundred and ten miles from Santa Fé, is situated in the pleasant valley of the Moro. It is an open post, without either stockades or breastworks of any kind, and, barring the officers and soldiers who are seen about, it has much more the appearance of a quiet frontier village than that of a military station. It is laid out with broad and straight streets crossing each other at right angles. The huts are built of pine logs, obtained from the neighboring mountains, and the quarters of both officers and men wore a neat and comfortable appearance.[1]
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ William H. Davis, El Gringo − or New Mexico and Her People, Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York 1857 (online at: El Gringo), p. 51
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