Suttler. Pioneer. Born William Wells Bent in St. Louis, Missouri, he was for many years the manager of Bent's Fort, a substantial adobe outpost on the north bank of the Arkansas River in present-day Colorado which Bent built in 1833 and where he served as manager. The fort was the only significant permanent white settlement on the Santa Fe Trail between Missouri and the Mexican territories. The old fort is now a National Historic Site. Bent was one of the most widely known and highly respected traders in the west. Bent's trade in civilian and government supplies gave him a quasi-official role within the region. In 1835 he married the Cheyenne, Owl Woman, and with her raised four children. She died in 1847. His two subsequent marriages were to another Cheyenne woman and a Blackfoot woman. In the 1850s, Bent constructed a new outpost thirty-eight miles downstream from his old fort. For much of his adult life, Bent tried both as an Indian agent and as a private citizen to maintain a measure of peace and mutual toleration between the flood of settlers and the local Indian tribes. Bent is buried in the Las Animas Cemetery south of Las Animas, Colorado in a county named for him.
Suttler. Pioneer. Born William Wells Bent in St. Louis, Missouri, he was for many years the manager of Bent's Fort, a substantial adobe outpost on the north bank of the Arkansas River in present-day Colorado which Bent built in 1833 and where he served as manager. The fort was the only significant permanent white settlement on the Santa Fe Trail between Missouri and the Mexican territories. The old fort is now a National Historic Site. Bent was one of the most widely known and highly respected traders in the west. Bent's trade in civilian and government supplies gave him a quasi-official role within the region. In 1835 he married the Cheyenne, Owl Woman, and with her raised four children. She died in 1847. His two subsequent marriages were to another Cheyenne woman and a Blackfoot woman. In the 1850s, Bent constructed a new outpost thirty-eight miles downstream from his old fort. For much of his adult life, Bent tried both as an Indian agent and as a private citizen to maintain a measure of peace and mutual toleration between the flood of settlers and the local Indian tribes. Bent is buried in the Las Animas Cemetery south of Las Animas, Colorado in a county named for him.
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