Charles Dale Rea/Old Fort Memorial Tower - Durango, CO - Colorado Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

There are relevant plaques to the history of the area and Fort Lewis College mounted inside the base of the campuses' clock tower. They are as follows:

Fort Lewis as a military post, 1878-1891

Fort Lewis was originally staffed as a military post in Pagosa Springs in 1878, to control and protect the Southern Ute Indians and the settlers who were moving into the area. Relocated in 1880 near Hesperus, Fort Lewis was ordered closed by the Federal government in 1891 and was turned over to the Department of Interior for use as an Indian School.
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Fort Lewis as an Indian school, 1892-1910

The Fort Lewis Indian School was opened in 1892 with 51 children enrolled. Tribes represented included Navajo, Ute, Apache and Sioux. By 1901 the school had 345 students, but because reservation schools were being encouraged, the number of students at Fort Lewis dropped to 40 in 1909. (See the Colorado State Archives' online list of names from this and another Indian Industrial Schools in the 1900 Federal Census at (visit link) .) 1910 was the final year of the Fort Lewis Indian School.
That year, Congress offered the property to Colorado with two conditions: that it would be an institution of learning, and that the Indian pupils would not be charged tuition.
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Fort Lewis as a high school and junior college, 1911-1938

In 1911, Congress deeded the Hesperus site to the State of Colorado and the Governor signed a bill establishing an agricultural high school at Fort Lewis under the governance of the State Board of Agriculture, as a branch of the State College of Agriculture.
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Fort Lewis as a college, 1950s -

In 1925 a petition with over 1,000 signatures requested the Colorado General Assembly to establish Fort Lewis as a college. A two-year college curriculum was inaugurated in 1927. In 1933 Fort Lewis began offering only college-level courses; high school classes were discontinued. In 1948 Fort Lewis was officially designated a junior college with its own president; it was autonomous from the college at Fort Collins but they were both under control of the State Board
of Agriculture. In 1962 Fort Lewis College became a baccalaureate degree-granting institution.

(From (visit link) )

Group or Groups Responsible for Placement: Fort Lewis College and the City of Durango County or City: Durango Date Dedicated: 2001 Check here for Web link(s) for additional information: [Web Link]

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Date Logged Log User Rating   10/01/2019 kingbee visited it