DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. About a mile and a half east of where you're rolling right now, there's a creek that carries two names on its back — Charles Bent and William Bent — and if you know anything about the frontier, those names should make you sit up a little straighter in your seat. Charles, born in 1799, and his brother William, born in 1809, were the kind of men the frontier seemed to be waiting on.
They were famed — that's the marker's own word, and it earns it — for trading with mountain men and what folks of that era called 'wild' Indians. These weren't occasional visitors to the southern plains. As early as 1835, they were pushing down from their headquarters near present-day La Junta, Colorado, all the way to the Canadian River, right here in this vicinity, trading with the Kiowas and the Comanches.
That is a long ride with a lot of goods and a lot riding on whether you'd built up the right kind of trust. They built at least three posts along the river and the tributary creeks threading off it. But the one that stuck — the one that left the deepest mark on this land — was Fort Adobe.
Built between 1843 and 1844, it was the most permanent of those posts, and even after it fell into ruin, it kept making history like it couldn't help itself. Because in those ruins, northeast of where you're sitting right now, Kit Carson fought what would be recorded as his last big Indian battle, in 1864. And then, ten years later in 1874, the same crumbling walls witnessed buffalo hunters and Indians clash in what history calls the Battle of Adobe Walls.
Two battles. One set of ruins. Out here on the Canadian River, the Bents built something that outlasted itself.
Charles died in 1847. William made it to 1869. But that creek?
That creek is still running.
What the marker says
(About 1.5 miles east) Named for Charles (1799-1847) and William Bent (1809-1869), famed for frontier trading with mountain men and "wild" Indians. As early as 1835 they came from their headquarters near present La Junta, Colo., to trade with the Kiowas and Comanches along the Canadian River, in this vicinity. They built at least three posts along the river and tributary creeks; most permanent post was Fort Adobe, built 1843-1844. In the ruins of this fort (NE of here) Kit Carson fought his last big Indian battle (1864), and buffalo hunters and Indians fought the Battle of Adobe Walls in 1874. (1971)