August 20, 2023 – Traveling With Rich & Julie
We had already driven north to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park north unit entrance in North Dakota, and were only 60 miles away from this national historic site, so we made the trip on up to Williston.
What a neat experience it is to drive through the vast open prairie and see an old fur trading post appear.
According to NPS.gov, Fort Union was one of the most important and profitable fur trading posts on the Upper Missouri River between 1828 and 1867.
Several local Indian tribes exchanged large buffalo hides and smaller furs like beaver and rabbit, for a mixture of goods from all over the world.
Fort Union was not a military fort. It was built by John Jacob Astor, founder of The American Fur Company as a privately owned commercial establishment to engage in business with the Northern Plains Tribes.
As settlers moved west and migrated into the Dakota territory, the United States Army built Fort Buford in 1866, just three miles east of the trading post, to protect the Missouri River transportation route from scavengers. We did not have time to visit Fort Buford.
One year later, in 1867, the Army purchased Fort Union from its last private owner and tore it down.
It wasn’t until 1966 that the National Park Service acquired the property and began reconstruction efforts to restore the fort to its former glory.
Archeologists recovered many artifacts during the restoration process and these items are on display today.
Today’s Fort Union is a reconstruction based in part on the archaeological evidence recovered during those and later excavations completed between 1986 and 1988. Rebuilt to its appearance in 1851, at the height of the buffalo robe trade at Fort Union, the fort offers a place that helps illuminate the post’s role in shaping the land and culture of the Upper Missouri region and the Northern Great Plains. -NPS.gov
Another National Site marked off my bucket list.
Thanks for stopping by and reading my article about another great site in North America.