Federal funding has been secured for the upgrade of a military post in Colorado that predates the Civil War.
Located near the New Mexico border, Fort Garland was originally built by the US Army to provide a waystation and protection for settlers in the area. The explorer Kit Carson, serving as a brigadier general, was briefly in command at the fort in 1866.
Although abandoned by the federal government in the 1880s, the structures at the site, serving as living quarters for the Union Army, which also included the black Buffalo Soldiers, have been preserved through the decades.
The population of the site and surrounding area has never been large: in 1908 the Colorado Stateman newspaper reported that around 600 people were calling the area home, “providing a nucleus for a fine farming community.”
According to a Census Bureau survey from 2020 the local population stood at 646.
Funding for the work at Fort Garland is coming from the National Park Service’s Historic Preservation Fund and is seeing $164,000 targeting a heating system upgrade.
What is now called the Fort Garland Museum & Cultural Center is comprised of several adobe structures that serve as both exhibit and education space.
In a statement, Dawn DiPrince, chief executive officer of History Colorado, the agency overseeing the funding project, said the structural upgrades will make it possible to “exhibit rare or fragile documents and objects at the site.”
By Garry Boulard
Photo Courtesy of History Colorado
