Fort Gerry (Kersey, Colorado)

Kersey · Colorado

Quick BriefElbridge Gerry established a trading post called Fort Gerry on the South Platte River near the present-day town of Kersey, Colorado in the 1830s. He had two Native American wives who helped him run the post. In 1840, Gerry abandoned the site and built a post on the south bank of the river.

History & Significance

Elbridge Gerry established a trading post called Fort Gerry on the South Platte River near the present-day town of Kersey, Colorado in the 1830s. Gerry is said to be the first white man to settle in what is now Weld County.

He had two Native American wives who helped him run the post. The fort functioned as a small fur and trade enterprise in the earliest years of European settlement in northeastern Colorado.

In 1840, Gerry abandoned the site and built a post on the south bank of the river. This small fur trading outpost operated intermittently until about 1854, focusing on local Native commerce before abandonment amid declining trade viability. Fort Gerry represented the frontier trading tradition that characterized the South Platte River valley during the fur trade era of the 1830s–1840s, before military posts and permanent agricultural settlement transformed the region.