Santa Fe Trail
Fort Union National Monument, NM

Between 1850 and 1865 three forts were built on the site where the remains of Fort Union now stand. The third Fort is the one still visible today. In its prime it was almost a city in itself. Erected in 1863 and 1869, and modified somewhat during the 1870s, it consisted of the military post of Fort union and the Fort Union Quartermaster Depot and served as the principal supply base for the Military Department of New Mexico. Arriving from the east over the Santa Fe Trail, shipments of food, clothing, arms, and ammunition, as well as tools and building materials, were unpacked and stored in warehouses, then assigned as needed to other forts. Like most southwestern military posts, Fort Union was not enclosed by a wall or stockade.

The ruins of Fort Union are an impressive memorial to the men and women who won the West. It is difficult, however, to look at these melted adobe walls and the few chimneys that rise above ground level and realize that this was once the largest U.S. military installation on the 19th-century southwestern frontier. The stone foundations of the buildings are still visible, as are some of the adobe walls.