Fort Union Trading Post Historic Structures Report (Part II) Historical Data Section

While not mentioned in the narratives, this tower is very much in evidence in a number of sketches. It first appears in Kurz' sketches of 1851-52. Those he did of the bourgeois' house, show the pointed roof of the tower and its decorative lightning rod (?) just beyond the roof-top gallery. In his sketch of the north side of the fort, from the exterior, we see the top of the tower. While no written source exists that says this is a bell tower, it stood near the kitchen and there is written evidence that meals were announced by the ringing of a bell--e. g. Harris, 1843: "the bell sounded for the second supper;" Palliser, 1848: "We rose when the bell rang, and repaired to the dining room and a cheerful cottonwood fire." Point (1847), Stanley (1853), Soldier (1864), and Photo, 1866, all show this bell tower.