South Platte Valley Historical Society Society`````````````````````````````South Platte Valley Historical Society

Rebuilding the Past - For the Future

Last Update

January 24, 2011

Experience History -A Trip Through Time

Written by Dorothy and David Lupton

Experience history!  Travel the old Trappers' Trail through Colorado's South Platte Valley.  The snow covered mountains to the west and the ever-changing cloud patterns will frame your journey and welcome you to a trip through time-the time of the fur trader.  The well maintained U.S.85, covering much of the trail, offers plenty of locations for food, gas and supplies and a comfortable, interesting journey.  But transportation and communication for the early trapper and trader was slow and difficult!  His first priority was to take care of his horse; his second was to find a shelter.

Although sometimes harsh, this was not a lonely area.  Indian tribes following the buffalo were soon joined on the trail by merchants, traders, trappers, Mexican laborers and suppliers, military expeditions, and adventurers.  The novice fur trader had to learn quickly how to be trail smart.  He also had to know the difference between friends and enemies.  When twenty-nine year old New Yorker, Lancaster Lupton reached the South Platte Valley in late 1836 he already knew his share of enemies.  After graduating from West Point in 1829, he served in the military on the frontier for over six years.  His involvement in the petty problems of a peacetime army resulted in his resignation.  When he left for the west in September of 1836, he brought with him a keen disappointment with the "civilized world".  He had been to the South Platte Valley before with Colonel Dodge's 1835 expedition.  Now he is returning to make this his home.  His assignment was to build a fort!

On your journey along the Trappers' Trail you will see the site he chose just north of the contemporary community of Fort Lupton.  If you are fortunate several men will be standing in that dusty field.  Nearby will be their farm trucks and perhaps their hunting dogs exercising in the open space.  Some will have their arms outstretched, pointing to the invisible walls of Lupton's fort.  Others will be drawing in the soil their architectural expression of the old fur trading post.  Nods of approval will be apparent.  And if it happens to be November, as it was when Lancaster Lupton returned to the site it could be windy and cold.

Results of a similar meeting one hundred and sixty four years ago have shaped the very life of this area.  Lancaster Lupton stood bargaining with his laborers from Taos.  He had never built an adobe fort!  They had!  Many times!  Since the adobe bricks would not "cure" during cold weather, the actual building of a permanent structure would not begin until spring.  Lancaster Lupton, therefore, went about the business of taking a bride.  He selected a young lady named Tomas (also spelled Thomassa), who was the daughter of an Indian chief.  Her place of birth was near the confluence of the North Platte and Laramie River in what we now call Wyoming.  We know little about this woman except for the fact that she lived with Lancaster to the end of his days.  If intended to be a "business deal" it turned out to be a very successful marriage.

Lancaster Lupton continued in the fur trade at Fort Lancaster (as Fort Lupton was then called) until 1844.  Unfortunately there are many details about Lupton and his fort that are missing.  Our researchers would like your help to discover either his trading license or identify under whose license he was trading.  They would like to confirm that the financial backing for this post came from Hiram Rich and Albert G. Wilson, merchants of Liberty, Missouri.

Another mystery of this trading post deals with the disposition of the account books for the post.  Detailed information had to be kept concerning supplies and purchases.  These books were no doubt returned to the financial backers.  Do they still exist, sitting forgotten on a dusty shelf in some historical society library?  What a story they would tell.

When Lupton and his architects produced their first adobe brick they began to build more than a fort.  They were building a community!  Over time, in spite of crumbling walls, new pioneers began staking their claims.  Some would leave-more would arrive.  Lupton kept his for only eight years, but, those eight years hardened the ground and made firm the roads and served to invite people to share in the beauty and agricultural bounty of the South Platte Valley.

Members of a partnership are still standing in those dusty trails.  Today they are using more technical systems to design the rebirth of Lupton's trading post.  This structure will be a monument to Lupton and his talented architects and to the Indians that made the area their home.  It will be a tribute to the people of the South Platte Valley that want to design a historical learning center for children.  Visitors will come to reflect upon the life at this post and the accomplishment of this community.  Please come and join us and Experience History.

Back to the Top