Site Audio Tour: Stop 5

The Story

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My name is Wes Studie and I welcome you to this historic place. Telling the story of Fort Sumner and the Bosque Redondo Indian Reservation is to respect the significant cultural, spiritual, and physical pain suffered here by the Navajo and Mescalero Apache, and to acknowledge United States policies which contributed to one of the most tragic eras in American history.

Step outside to the surroundings. To the west, the Pecos River flows. During the 1860s, 450 Mescalero Apache prisoners lived here, on either side of the river. The Navajo prisoners?about 8,500 of them? lived to the north.