Proposed Interpretive Site and Old Spanish Trail Project, Delta, Colorado

Fort Uncompahgre will come alive as William Bailey and a group of professional interpreters will spend Saturday and Sunday, May 17 & 18 at Fort Uncompahgre reenacting the day in the life at Fort Uncompahgre. The two day event will feature excellent fur trade interpreters living at the fort carrying out their daily tasks in the year 1840. The invited guests and public will meet the historical characters and experience blacksmithing, adobe work, cooking, games, and hear the hammer strike the anvil, and learn how a flintlock rifle works. Step back in time with us as we explore the first trading post on the North Branch of The Old Spanish Trail and learn about life 160 years ago.
Fort Uncompahgre Living History Museum is a re-creation of Antoine Roubidoux’s 1828-1844 fur trapping and trading post, the first permanent American settlement in western Colorado. It was, for Natives in the area, that life-altering moment of the first contact with Anglo-Americans. The original post was situated about two miles down from the confluence of the Gunnison River and the Uncompahgre River. Its design was more to secure goods and livestock than to be defensive, and was abandoned in 1844 when hostilities broke out between Utes and Mexicans.