History
The Fort, located on a bluff above the Hogback in Jefferson County near Morrison, was constructed between 1961 and 1963 for the Denver advertising executive and food historian Sam Arnold. It was designed as a careful replica of Bent's Old Fort, the adobe trading post built by William and Charles Bent on the Arkansas River in the 1830s, and incorporates more than eighty thousand handmade adobe bricks laid up over heavy timber framing with beams hewn by drawknife, foot adze, and hand plane.
The building's plan reproduces the rectangular fortified placita of the original Bent's Fort, with bastion towers at opposing corners, a central courtyard, and surrounding rooms ranged along the inner walls. The exterior finish is rough mud plaster over adobe, and detailing throughout draws on the period vocabulary of the 1840s frontier adobe trade post. The project was originally conceived as a combined family residence and living-history museum but was reshaped as a restaurant in order to secure financing through the Small Business Administration; it opened to the public on February 1, 1963.
The Fort has since become one of the best-known restaurants in Colorado, specializing in the regional game and frontier cuisine of the Southwest. Sam Arnold operated the restaurant until his death in 2006, after which his daughter Holly Arnold Kinney continued the family stewardship. The property was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006, with a boundary increase approved in 2020.
The building remains in private ownership and active commercial use as a restaurant rather than a private residence in the ordinary sense.
Within Colorado's adobe tradition, The Fort is a uniquely deliberate twentieth-century revival, recovering through scholarship and craft an Arkansas Valley trade-post type that had otherwise been almost entirely lost by the time the building rose.
Common questions
What is The Fort?
The Fort is a historic restaurant in Morrison, Colorado, housed in an adobe Pueblo Revival style structure designed as a replica inspired by Bent's Fort, the historic 19th-century trading post on the Santa Fe Trail in southeastern Colorado.
When was The Fort built?
Construction of The Fort began in 1961. The building was designed as a modern adobe structure inspired by the historic Bent's Fort trading post.
Where is The Fort located?
The Fort is located in Morrison, Colorado, in Jefferson County, in the foothills west of Denver.
Can you visit The Fort?
The Fort operates as a historic restaurant rather than a residence. While the entry classifies the property as private, its function as a public-facing restaurant means visitors can experience the adobe structure as customers of the establishment.
What architectural style is The Fort?
The Fort is built in the Pueblo Revival style as a modern adobe structure. Its design was inspired by Bent's Fort, a historic Santa Fe Trail trading post, giving it the massed adobe walls and frontier silhouette of an early-19th-century western fort.