Fort Garland

For forty-five years after the Army lowered its flag in 1883 the fort passed among private owners. In 1928 San Luis Valley people formed the Fort Garland Historical Fair Association and bought it, selling five-dollar shares to farmers and ranchers who meant to make it a fairground; by then five of its twenty-two buildings stood. The association kept them up until 1945, then gave the fort to the State Historical Society, which opened it as a museum in 1950. The Ninth Cavalry, Buffalo Soldiers, served here from 1876 to 1879. The 1930 bronze has been removed.

What the plaque says

This memorial is the property of the State of Colorado Fort Garland United States military outpost to protect settlers from hostile Indians. Named for Brig. Gen. John Garland commander of this district in 1858. Established 1858. Abandoned 1883. Commanded by Col. Kit Carson, 1866-7. Erected by the State Historical Society of Colorado from the Mrs. J. N. Hall Foundation and by the Huajatolla Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, of Walsenburg 1930 This tablet is the property of the State of Colorado Fort Garland State Historical Monument This property was presented to the State Historical Society by the Fort Garland Historical Fair Association, which saved the fort for posterity. Established November 30, 1945, as a memorial to the first Colo- rado settlers, and the U.S. Army troops who protected them. Erected by the State Historical Society of Colorado from the William A. Braiden Marker Fund 1949

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Shrine of the Stations of the Cross — 15 mi
  A parish's own Calvary on the mesa above Colorado's oldest town, with bronze stations by a San Luis sculptor whose models went to the Vatican.
• Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve — 22 mi
  Saved from gold miners and a cement plant by women's clubs in 1932, and made a national park in 2004 to keep the valley's groundwater from being piped away.
• Colorado Gators Reptile Park — 31 mi
  A tilapia farm on an 87-degree geothermal well that bought a hundred baby alligators in 1987 to eat the fish guts, and became a refuge for unwanted reptiles.

More markers nearby

• Colorado's Earliest Settlements — 15 mi
• San Luis Valley — 16 mi
• San Luis Peoples Ditch — 16 mi