Fort Union National Monument
National Monument · Watrous, New Mexico
Fort Union was built in 1851 where the two branches of the Santa Fe Trail come back together, and by the 1860s it had grown into the largest military post in the Southwest: a supply depot for every fort in the territory, with warehouses, a hospital, workshops, corrals and officers' quarters spread across the plain. Three forts were built here in succession, the last a huge adobe complex on stone foundations. When the railroad reached the region the trail died, and the fort with it - it was abandoned in 1891 and the adobe began going back to earth. What stands now is the largest visible network of Santa Fe Trail ruts anywhere, and acres of melting adobe walls and chimneys on open grassland, with the Sangre de Cristo behind them. A 1.6-mile interpretive loop runs through it. It is enormous, it is empty, and almost nobody stops. It is eight miles off I-25 and 45 minutes from Las Vegas, New Mexico, and the far end of the loop - the mechanics corral and the depot warehouses - is where it becomes obvious this was a supply operation rather than a fighting fort.
3115 NM Highway 161, Watrous, New Mexico, 87753, United States
Open daily 8 AM - 4 PM (winter), 8 AM - 5 PM (summer).
Fort Union National Monument on Spottos · Explore more places on Spottos