Fort Union National Monument (Part 2)

The Post Commander's Home stood in the middle of the Post Officers' Quarters’ row. The commanding officer of the cavalry and infantry at Fort Union lived in this eight-room house. Only the quartermaster, who directed construction as commanding officer of the depot, lived in a finer residence at Fort Union.

After the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad reached Lamy near Santa Fe in 1879, travel along the Santa Fe Trail slowly ended. The Fort Union Arsenal became redundant as a distribution center and last supplied munitions for campaigns against the Apache tribes in southern New Mexico and Arizona (1876-1882) before closing in 1882. Captain William Shoemaker, who formerly commanded the arsenal, retired to become its unofficial caretaker while residing in his home at the closed arsenal. Activities at Fort Union continued for another nine years before it was abandoned in 1891.

The Quartermaster’s Office is where the commanding officer of the depot worked.

The forty-year operation of Fort Union was legally controversial as it was inadvertently established on private property. The claimants of the Mora Grant on which the fort stood took the government to court but the case remained tied up for years without a favorable ruling. In 1852, Lieutenant Colonel Edwin Vose Sumner expanded the area of the fort to eight square miles by claiming it as a military reservation. In 1868, President Andrew Johnson further expanded the fort to include a timber reservation of 53 square miles encompassing the entirety of the nearby Turkey Mountains. After the Surveyor-General of New Mexico reported that Fort Union was "no doubt" on the Mora Grant in 1876, the Army refused to relocate the fort or pay the claimants. The Secretary of War argued that the Army improved the area and would not leave without compensation. The War Department finally relinquished its claim to the land in 1894, three years after the fort was abandoned. The legitimate landowners were never compensated.

The Butler-Ames Cattle Company (later renamed the Union Land and Grazing Company) inherited the title to the fort and initially attempted to lease the buildings as a sanitarium. When the contract fell through, the land was opened to cattle grazing and the fort deteriorated due to exposure to the elements, vandalism, and the repurposing of materials by locals to build and repair homes. In 1929, the Freemasons in Las Vegas, NM tried to get the fort protected as a national monument since it was the birthplace of two Masonic lodges but the economic woes of the Great Depression killed the effort.

In 1939, Edward B. Wheeler, agent for the Union Land and Grazing Company, agreed to recommend that the land be donated to the government for the establishment of a national monument. However, Andrew Marshall, the attorney for the company, insisted the agreement include a reversionary clause to revert the title back to the company if the land remained inactive. Disagreement over this sticking point dampened enthusiasm for the deal and the issue would not be revisited until after World War II.

Supplies transported over the Santa Fe Trail were unloaded at these five storehouses later to be repacked and shipped out to provision forts across the Southwest.

In 1949, the Union Land and Grazing Company had the cisterns and wells at the fort backfilled to prevent people and cows from falling into them. Workers not only filled the cisterns and wells but also toppled weak walls and 20 chimneys. This outraged locals and the incident once again galvanized support for protection of the fort. As the situation unfolded, Andrew Marshall asked congressmen from his home state of Massachusetts to oppose any effort to create a national monument at the site. In 1952, a bill to establish Fort Union National Monument died when the owners of the Union Land and Grazing Company lobbied to block it.

In 1953, the state legislature of New Mexico passed a bill authorizing the state park commission to acquire the Fort Union Military Reservation and right-of-way access through eminent domain proceedings. Governor Edwin Mechem signed the bill with the intent that New Mexico would transfer the fort to the federal government for the creation of a national monument. Instead, the Union Land and Grazing Company agreed to transfer the lands directly to the federal government upon receipt of a $20,000 donation for "damages.” To this end, the non-profit organization Fort Union, Inc. was formed to fundraise and acquire Fort Union. Congress then passed a bill authorizing the national monument which was signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on June 28, 1954. The following year, Fort Union, Inc. gave the company two checks for $10,000 and the lands were transferred with the controversial reversionary clause. On April 4, 1956, the National Park Service established Fort Union National Monument.

The Transportation Corral was a service area for the thousands of draft animals that passed through or served the fort. After half of the original corral burned down in 1874, the Army removed the remainder and rebuilt the structure out of adobe.

The Mechanics Corral was where 70 civilian employees repaired damaged wagons, broken wheels, and worn-out harnesses.

Fort Union National Monument was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. The Santa Fe Trail was designated as Santa Fe National Historic Trail in 1987 to increase awareness and protection of the former trade route which covers 1,203 miles across Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and New Mexico. In 2019, Fort Union National Monument was designated as a Dark Sky Park by the International Dark-Sky Association.

The Post at Fort Union originally accommodated four companies in the U-shaped Enlisted Barracks. In 1875, buildings on either end of the Post Corrals were altered to house two more companies and the regimental band.

Each summer, fresh layers of adobe plaster are applied to the outside of the Fort Union ruins to protect its historic adobe bricks from the elements.

The Prison was completed in 1868. Although it was one of the last buildings constructed at the fort, only the cell block has survived. Murderers, deserters, and other criminals were incarcerated here, with two or more prisoners per cell.

Married sergeants, corporals, and privates lived in 11 one-room apartments with their wives and families. Many of the wives worked for the fort as laundresses so this row of homes was colloquially known as “Suds Row.”

With 126 beds at its peak, the Hospital had six wards and employed a surgeon, an assistant surgeon, and a staff of eight. Soldiers and their families received free care while civilians paid about 50¢ a day for boarding.

Those are wagon ruts preserved on the Santa Fe Trail.