Fort Union is a free historic site. Permission was granted from the National Park Service. You may only get to this site from 9:00am-5:00pm Central time.
Fort Union is located close to the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers. The Fort was constructed by John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company after the Assiniboine Nation requested a trading post. The Fort operated from 1828-1867. Although the name is Fort Union, it was neither a Military or Government Post.
Seven Upper Missouri tribes: Assiniboine, Plain Cree, Blackfeet, Plains Chippewa, Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara would trade at Fort Union.
This was the most important fur trade post on the Upper Missouri River. Here buffalo robes and smaller furs were exchanged for goods from around the world including cloth, guns, blankets, and beads. A bastion of coexistence, the post annually traded over 25,000 Buffalo Robes and $100,000 in merchandise.
The Fort was routinely visited by well known visitors. George Catlin, Prince Maximilian of Wied, and James John Audubon were but a few of the many Artists and scientists who came to the Upper Missouri fort to learn about the region's native peoples, wildlife, and landscape. Their observations, recorded in sketches, paintings, and journals later shared with people in the East and overseas, made the region the most well documented in the American West prior to photography's adoption.
Not long after the Dakota Territory was established in 1861, settlers began to migrate west from the states. To protect at first the Missouri River, the major transportation corridor into the Northern Plains, and then the growing Euro-American settlements in the formerly tribal-controlled Upper Missouri region, the U.S. Army in 1866 built Fort Buford three miles east of the trade post. The next year, in 1867, the U.S. Army purchased Fort Union from its last private owner, the Northwest Fur Company. Palisades and bastions along with salvaged timber and stone were transported to help complete Fort Buford. Passing riverboats would scavenge what wood they could find to burn in their steam engines.
Within a few years there was little trace of Fort Union.
The National Park Service acquired the site in 1966 two years later archaeological excavations commenced into the early 1970's. Today's Fort Union is a reconstruction based in part on the archaeological evidence recovered during those and later excavations completed between 1986-1988. It was rebuilt to the year 1851, which was the height of the buffalo robe trade at Fort Union.
My source of information was from NPS.gov
To claim this cache you must answer the following Questions.
1- Describe the painting on the Front Gate
2- What is standing outside the front gate on your right, as you are facing toward the gate?
3-What Year is painted on the house?
These next Questions will take you into the museum of Fort Union.
4- What color is the Beaver Tall Hat?
5-There are 2 model boats in the museum, what's the name of boat with the US Flag flying?
6-What was the most commonly traded item?
Optional, post a picture of your self or Geo-Crew etc.
If you do not provide the answers to the questions your log will be deleted.
Virtual Rewards 3.0 - 2022-2023
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between March 1, 2022 and March 1, 2023. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 3.0 on the Geocaching Blog.