Fort Lyon Today
The colorful history of Fort Lyon, Colorado, encompasses two 19th century army posts, a naval hospital, a veterans’ hospital, a minimum-security prison and a recovery and rehabilitation facility for the homeless. Today, its green lawns, quiet, tree-lined streets and peaceful beauty belie its tumultuous past.
In 1860, the United States Army leased William Bent’s New Fort to use as a military outpost on the Santa Fe Trail and as headquarters for the Upper Arkansas Indian Agency, which governed the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Reservation. While in residence, Colonel John Chivington used Old Fort Lyon as his staging post when, in 1864, he led the shameful attack now known as the Sand Creek Massacre. The history of the fort leading up to that historic and tragic event had many twists and turns.
Bent’s New Fort was destroyed when ice flows caused the Arkansas River to flood in 1866. The army relocated and built anew fort 20 miles upstream at its present location near Las Animas, Colorado. The new fort would continue in active service to one or more branches of the United States military for the next 133 years. It was an active army post until the end of the Indian Wars in 1897. During the 1860s and 1870s, it was home to the famed Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry. Kit Carson, who then lived in nearby Boggsville, died in the doctor’s quarters at the fort in 1868. A chapel, that stands today, was built in his honor.
The navy took control of the fort in 1906 and used it as a hospital to treat sailors and Marines with tuberculosis. In 1907, they started a cemetery which is now Fort Lyon National Cemetery.
The Veterans Bureau assumed operations in 1922 and, in 1930, management was taken over by the newly created Veterans Administration, which used the 556-acre campus as a psychiatric hospital. The veterans’ hospital operated continuously for the next 79 years. When the military finally closed the hospital in 2001, they gave the site to the State of Colorado. For the next 10 years, Fort Lyon served as a minimum-security prison. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2004, but the campus was abandoned again in 2011.
But the fort refused to die. The historic site was rescued once more in 2013, this time by the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. Its successful operation continues today as a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center for people experiencing homelessness.
Fort Lyon is located at 15700 County Road HH, Las Animas, Colorado, 81054. It is located approximately five miles east of Las Animas on U.S. Highway 50. Turn south on Colorado Highway 183. The Fort Lyon gate is one mile ahead at the stop sign. The Kit Carson Chapel is located on the right, 50 yards beyond the main gate, just at the turn to Fort Lyon National Cemetery on the left.
The grounds of Fort Lyon and Kit Carson Chapel are privately operated by the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, 719-662-1100. Fort Lyon National Cemetery is open year-round. It is operated by Pikes Peak National Cemetery, 303-216-1025.