Fort Vasquez is an old trading post dating from the 1830s that's just a short drive to the southeast from our house. Currently a museum and modern-day trading post, it's located in the median strip of US 85, just north of a set of coops. We've driven by and been intrigued by it often over the years, but until yesterday, we'd never been inside.
Recently we learned that Fort Vasquez was hosting a National Park Service travelling exhibit commerating the 150th anniversary of the signing of the homestead act on May 20, 1862. Knowing a little about the impact this act had on the history of the country and specifically the west, we decided to check out the exhibit in the hopes of learning more. Yesterday the weather was beautiful, sunny and quite warm, so we headed for Fort Vasquez.
This is an ariel view of US 85, looking north, taken in 1970.
The fort is was surrounded by adobe walls at the time, and it is just above the dark patch with the scalehouse. We immediately noticed the lane markings--so different from today's. Wow.
This is what Fort Vasquez looks like today.
It was rebuilt in the 1930s by the WPA, it probably would have been paved over long ago were it not for that project.
Both the fort and the South Platte River moved/changed course since the original 1830s building was built; the river is now several hundred feet to the west, it was only 40 ft from the original building.
The museum has some beautiful old Native American beadwork and examples of trading beads on exhibit.
A beaded pouch
The photography in the museum was a challenge. Many of the exhibits were behind glass and even the ones that weren't were tricky because of a prohibition against using a flash.
very intricate beadwork
a beaded dagger sheath and some large glass beads
A section on the history Fort Vasquez and some other trading posts in the area
The exhibit was illustrated with old photographs that were informative and interesting.
native american painting on animal skin
The museum also had guns, knives and traps and such on display, all relating to the trading of skins and pelts which were once important trading currencies.
One exhibit consisted of a table covered with the (tanned) skins of some local animals. The skins were intended to be handled and examined, and we found it very interesting to feel and compare the textures of skunk, martin, beaver, antelope, and bison skins among others. The fact that they were dead animal skins felt somewhat creepy and I could barely bring myself to handle the lynx and bobcat skins, however the ability to experience what the different furs felt like overrode my original hesitancies.
a diorama showing methods of travel once used by native americans in the area
The dog pulling a basketfull of puppies is so cool...
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The Park Service Homestead Act Anniversary Exhibit:
Didn't know what to expect this exhibit would be like, as it turned out it is just a series of 6 ft tall banners with some information and related photographs and document reproductions on them. They were interesting enough, but I had actually hoped for a bit more. Not sure what, exactly, but the banners were pretty quick to read and then that was that. Perhaps by design.
picture of a homesteading family in the 1800s
After learning about the Homested Act exhibit, we did do some reading on the web to give ourselves some background on the subject. We usually do that, knowing a little about what we are looking at makes anything more interesting.
Especially glad we did the pre-trip research in this case because it's where we learned most of what we know about the act and its impacts. Not sure how more information could have been presented, and perhaps the banners were sufficient in our case because after an hour of reading on the web we do feel we know quite a bit about the subject. And we are now aware of the Homestead Act National Monument outside of Beatrice NE (on the site of the first homestead act claim) where there is undoubtably a wealth of information collected from the past 150 years.
