Fort Garland Museum preserves an 1858 adobe army post

In the town of Fort Garland, near the north end of Costilla County, an old adobe army post still stands. Fort Garland was built in 1858, soon after this land became part of the United States, to keep order in a valley that Hispano families had already been settling for years. Today it is the Fort Garland Museum and Cultural Center, run by History Colorado.

The fort carries layered history. The frontier scout Kit Carson served as its commandant in 1866 and 1867. In the late 1870s, soldiers of the Ninth Cavalry, one of the Black regiments known as Buffalo Soldiers, were stationed here. History Colorado took over the site in 1945 and opened it as a museum in 1950, and visitors can walk the parade ground and tour several original adobe buildings.

The museum is a good way to understand how this corner of Colorado came to be: a meeting place of Hispano settlers, the U.S. Army, and Native nations, including the Ute people whose homeland this was. Some of that history is hard, and the site tells it plainly rather than romanticizing it.

For hours, exhibits, and current programs, check the Fort Garland Museum pages on History Colorado’s website.