Old Fort Peck

The board credits the firm and the colonel; neither plaque names the man who built the stockade. Abel Farwell, a former Hudson's Bay Company trader, raised it for Durfee & Peck in 1867, and by 1873 kept a post in the Cypress Hills, beside the Nakoda camp that Benton wolfers attacked that June. He turned witness against them. Fort Benton never forgave him: when Farwell died in 1886 on the Clarks Fork, where he had settled with his Apsáalooke wife, its River Press wrote that he left no friends there.

What the plaque says

Old Fort Peck Old Fort Peck was located about a mile above the present dam site. Built in 1867 as a trading post and an agency in 1871, it served also as quarters for military and government officials when negotiating with the Indians. It was abandoned in 1879 due to river erosion and the agency moved to Poplar.. Placed by: Milk River Chapter DAR Old Fort Peck On the west bank of the Missouri River about 1 mile from the Dam was located Old Fort Peck. The stockade, about 300 feet square with walls 12 feet high of cottonwood logs set vertically, 3 bastions and 3 gateways on the front, and 2 bastions on the rear, inclosed quarters for men, store houses, blacksmith shop, stables and corral. Built in 1867 by the firm of Durfee & Peck as a trading post, the Fort was named for Col. Campbell K. Peck. Although not an Army Post, it often served as temporary headquarters for military men and commissioners sent out by the Government to negotiate with the Indians. To peaceful Indians it was an important trading post to trappers and rivermen a safe shelter from warlike Indians. Sternwheel steamers loaded and unloaded here and took on wood for steam for their journeys. Old Fort Peck is history. Its site lies peacefully, with its memories, covered by a man-made lake which is formed by the largest earthfill dam ever built by man.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Peck Theatre — 1.5 mi
  A movie house the Corps of Engineers threw up in nine months for the dam crews, meant to come down when the dam was done.

More markers nearby

• Buffalo Country — 22 mi
• The Old Milk River Bridge and Tampico — 26 mi