A public-private partnership will create a 2-mile hiking trail at Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site in La Junta.
U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard, a Loveland Republican, said $71,733 will be provided to help build the “Trading Territory” Interpretive Trail. Colorado Preservation Inc. has pledged to pay 51 percent of the total cost of the trail.
“The fort had a long and rich role in the history of Western trading between settlers and Native Americans. The trail which will be constructed with these funds will really help to bring that story to modern visitors,” Allard said.
The loop trail will have seven waysides to interpret the natural environment of the site and its relationship to the human history of the area.
A reconstructed 1840s adobe trading post sits on the site, where traders, trappers and Plains Indian tribes came together for trade.
