About Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site
Fort Union was built in 1828 by the Upper Missouri Outfit under Kenneth McKenzie, financed by John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company and sited at the request of the Assiniboine Nation about two miles from where the Yellowstone River meets the Missouri. For 39 years, until 1867, it was the most important and longest-lasting fur trade post in the western United States. Ten Upper Missouri tribes traded here: the Assiniboine, Crow, Plains Cree, Blackfeet, Plains Ojibwa, Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota, and Dakota brought buffalo robes, beaver pelts, and grizzly furs and left with cloth, blankets, beads, guns, and cookware. In a good year the post handled more than 25,000 buffalo robes and $100,000 in merchandise. Visitors who passed through included John James Audubon, George Catlin, Karl Bodmer, Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, Jim Bridger, and Sitting Bull. When the trade ended, soldiers dismantled the fort and reused its timbers to build nearby Fort Buford.
The site was designated a National Historic Landmark on July 4, 1961, one of the earliest in the country, and Congress authorized Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site on June 20, 1966, with the National Park Service taking possession that year. Archaeologists excavated the site from 1968 into the early 1970s and again from 1986 to 1988, and the fort you see today is a partial reconstruction of its 1851 appearance based on those digs and on drawings by Swiss artist Rudolf Kurz, who clerked at the post that year. The 444-acre park straddles the North Dakota-Montana line in McKenzie and Williams counties, North Dakota, and Richland and Roosevelt counties, Montana, about 25 miles southwest of Williston. The name "Trading Post" was added to distinguish it from Fort Union National Monument, an Army post in New Mexico.
Collections and Research Services
The excavations produced large collections of trade beads, clay pipes, firearms parts, and blacksmith-shop remains that have been published in NPS and academic studies, and the park's website offers a digital media collection of historic images and a historical overview of the post and its employees. The park bookstore is operated by the Fort Union Association, whose profits fund interpretation and education programs at the fort. Fort Union was a workplace, not a settlement, so family researchers are more likely to find ancestors in the published employee studies and fur-company ledgers than in local records; our guide to free family history research explains how to locate those sources.
Planning Your Visit
The park entrance is at 15550 Highway 1804, Williston, ND 58801, and there is no entrance fee. Operating hours change by season and are posted on the park website, so check before driving out; the NPS also publishes a "Top 10 Tips" page for first-time visitors. The signature event is the Fort Union Rendezvous, an annual fur trade fair with living-history demonstrations, and the park offers Junior Ranger and Junior Trader programs for children. Call (701) 572-9083 or visit nps.gov/fous for dates and hours. For the rest of the state's story, the State Historical Society of North Dakota in Bismarck runs the North Dakota Heritage Center and the state archives.
Explore North Dakota's Historical Landscape
Use the When It Was app to discover historical businesses, landmarks, and buildings throughout North Dakota. See how your community has transformed over the decades.
Explore When It Was →