The Approach pullout overlooks the area where Chivington's forces dropped their baggage and prepared to attack the village. Exhibits here address the Cheyenne and Arapaho journey to Sand Creek as well as the soldiers’ journey from Fort Lyon to Sand Creek. Three wayside exhibits here explore the story up to the beginning of the attack on the village.
Bent's New Fort was a historic fort and trading post along the banks of the Arkansas River on the Mountain Route branch of the Santa Fe Trail. William Bent operated a trading post with limited success at the site and in 1860 leased the fort to the United States government, which operated it as a military outpost until 1867. The site is privately owned today, and little remains of the building that once stood there.
The orientation area is located in between the visitor parking area and the Visitor Contact Station. Among the shade of cottonwood trees is a vault toilet, picnic tables, and orientation exhibits. A tornado shelter is located near the contact station.
The Overlook offers a panoramic view of the creek bed, where the Cheyenne and Arapaho village was located and where the massacre began. The surrounding landscape illustrates specific facets of the story such as the location of the pony herds, the direction of the soldiers’ attack and the routes of escape that most of the Cheyenne/Arapaho followed. With little exception, the landscape appears today exactly as it did during the time of the massacre.
This site includes interments of the remains of massacre victims that have been repatriated to the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes from museums and private individuals and interment sites for those that may be repatriated in the future.
Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site recognizes the national significance of the massacre in American history, and its ongoing significance to the Cheyenne and Arapaho people and massacre descendants.
Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site is located along the Santa Fe Trail. This massacre of nearly 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people by the US Army occurred on November 29, 1864, when 675 soldiers of the First and Third US Colorado Volunteer Cavalry attacked and destroyed a peaceful village, killing mostly women, children, and the elderly.
