It’s back to school time in Colorado, and Tesoro Cultural Center is excited to welcome visitors for a variety of educational programs. Tesoro is dedicated to offering public education outreach in an effort to preserve Colorado’s rich history and cultural heritage of the 19th-21st century.
Kiowa Curriculum
The Kiowa Curriculum is an oral history video, “The Kiowa People: In Their Own Words,” and includes a companion activity packet. The program features a Kiowa tribal member, John Emhoolah, and his family. It outlines the origin and migration of the Kiowa people, the use of horses and hunting practices, the importance of trade and Bent’s Old Fort, spiritual visions and warrior societies, and traditional music and dancing. The curriculum is available for distribution to teachers, schools and media centers, and all activities support current Colorado Academic Standards. Please click here for additional information.
Historic Educational Trunk Show & Tour
Tesoro Cultural Center offers a half-day educational field trip that includes a trunk show, tour and lunch, and is ideal for Colorado students grades third through eighth. In accordance with Colorado Model Content Academic Standards, students learn how the Bent’s Old Fort multicultural community helped shape the present-day west through commerce, constructive problem solving and communication.
Historic Lecture Series
Tesoro’s Historic Lecture Series presents the finest humanities scholars, historians and authors in the field of Western American history. The lecture series cultivates a new appreciation for the diverse cultures that shaped our current landscape. Click here to view the upcoming lecture schedule.
About Tesoro Cultural Center
Tesoro Cultural Center is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to protecting the artistic and cultural treasures of the American past, and making these treasures available to the community in the name of education and preservation. The structure in which the organization resides is an exact adobe replica of Old Bent’s Fort, a fur-trading post operable in the 1830s along the famous Santa Fe Trail. Many cultures, including American and European trappers, traders, settlers, American Indians, Mexican traders and others conducted business, generating thousands of dollars at Old Bent’s Fort. Respect for each culture and interracial marriages formed alliances that provided economic opportunities for all at Old Bent’s Fort, the “Castle on the Plains.” With its attention to historical detail, the structure that Tesoro Cultural Center calls home is now on the National Register of Historic Places, providing a true “living history” experience for its annual events. Tesoro means “treasure” in Spanish, and the nonprofit hosts community events and educational outreach programs designed to enrich and celebrate shared Southwestern cultural heritage.
