The Fort Historic Lecture Series

"I became interested in fur trade families and their neglected significance while a graduate student in the 1970s. 

Ever since, I and others, including many of these families’ descendants, have been tracing and telling about the Indigenous/ newcomer family ties that made the fur trade possible.

Two books encompass my explorations of these families and their ramifications: 

“Strangers in Blood: Fur Trade Company Families in Indian Country” (1980); and “An Ethnohistorian in Rupert’s Land: Unfinished Conversations” (2017)."  Jennifer Brown

Dinner Menu:  Six-ounce prime rib, Fort potatoes, which is a delicious combination of small red potatoes, tossed in caramelized onion, chef's seasonal vegetables, and blonde brownie a la mode.

This presentation is about a little-known side to Buffalo Bill which begins with a young Will Cody stealing apples and ends with him dining at the finest restaurants in America.  It was not an easy journey; he survived on mule flesh at Fort Bridger, hardtack and beans at Fort Laramie, and sage hens on the Great Plains.  He then guided the Grand Duke Alexis and dined in one of the fanciest tents he'd ever seen.  After that there was no turning back.  Cody ate with presidents and princes, taught the French to eat popcorn and opened the first Mexican restaurant east of the Mississippi.  And he drank a few drams of whiskey along the way.

Dinner Menu: Gonzales Steak - A 14-ounce Colorado natural beef NY strip, stuffed with New Mexican hatch green chiles, topped with a freshly grilled chile pod, green chile mac n' cheese, served with seasonal vegetables and seasonal cobbler using fresh fruit of the season, and a delicious crumb-topping. 

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Echo-Hawk will discuss his book, the "Sea of Grass: A Family Tale from the American Heartland." It chronicles the lives and times of ten generations of his Pawnee family in the central plains of North America, including the front range of Colorado. This story recounts how the world was created, spans Pawnee survival in this region from the 1790's through the present day, and offers readers a unique Indigenous perspective on this land and the history of this part of the world. The author will explain why he wrote this historical novel, how he researched and wrote it, and give a reading of selected passages. There will be time for questions and answers; and the author will provide, autograph, and sign books afterward.  

Dinner Menu:  Buffalo BBQ Ribs - smoked buffalo ribs (2), slowly roasted and smothered in our tangy Jack Daniels barbecue sauce, served with seasonal vegetables, butter & cream mashed potatoes with gravy, and Spotted Dog Bread Pudding served with a rum caramel sauce, and raisins, perfectly baked and served warm with a scoop of ice cream.  

Taking the Field: Soldiers, Nature, and Empire on American Frontiers (University of Nebraska Press, 2023) traces the ways US soldiers made sense of the landscapes of their service in both the US West and the Philippines in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this talk, Dr. Kohout will share how an unexpected archive of birds transformed the shape of this project and helped her to use the lived experiences of soldiers to connect places—and wars—often studied separately. Soldiers, she suggests, through their writing, their labor, and all they collected, demonstrate the critical role they played in shaping American ideas about both nature and empire, ideas that persist to the present.  

Dinner Menu:  Shrimp and Grits - Crispy jumbo gulf shrimp lightly breaded in panko and spice, quickly deep fried and set on top of a bed of stone mill southern grits, with goat cheese and butter, served with seasonal vegetables, and Bobbie Chaim's Cheesecake made with Neilson Massey’s Madagascar vanilla and with a graham cracker, almond crust, drizzled with wild Montana huckleberry syrup or seasonal toppings.

This lecture brings to life witches, balls of fire, the devil, bogeyman, evil eye and other supernatural experiences of northern New Mexico. Today these traditional oral stories once shared at the dinner table by old-timers with their grandchildren are gone forever.

Dinner Menu:  Buffalo brisket served with creamy mashed potatoes with red Dixon chile, chef's vegetables, and Chocolate Chile Bourbon cake, a delectable and ancient Aztec combination of a rich, dark chocolate, walnuts and New Mexico red chile. Layered with a chocolate fudge frosting with a hint of bourbon.

Even among iconic frontiersmen like John C. Frémont, Kit Carson, and Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger stands out. A mountain man of the American West, straddling the fur trade era and the age of exploration, he lived the life legends are made of. His adventures are fit for remaking into the tall tales Bridger himself liked to tell. Here, in this new award-winning biography that finally gives this outsize character his due, Jerry Enzler takes this frontiersman’s full measure for the first time—and tells a story that would do Bridger proud. Enzler will also describe Bridger’s guiding Edward Berthoud in 1861 from Denver to Provo and back and also Bridger witnessing a nine-day flood of the Platte River and what would one day be called Cherry Creek years before Denver was settled.

Dinner Menu: Mountain Man “Boudie” plate (one buffalo sausage, one rabbit rattlesnake sausage), served with sweet chile sauce and Dijon mustard for dipping, Fort potatoes, chef's seasonal vegetables, and Spotted Dog Bread Pudding served with a rum caramel sauce, and raisins, perfectly baked and served warm with a scoop of ice cream.