Fort Vancouver National Historic Site
— — the post the country grew around.
Not only on a wall.
“The Hudson's Bay Company opened a fur depot here in 1825 under John McLoughlin, and for the next two decades it was the most consequential building west of the Rockies. The reconstructed stockade sits on the original ground, a National Historic Site since 1961. Costumed staff work the blacksmith, the bakery, the kitchen garden. The Columbia rolls past the south side as it has the whole time. The site sits inside Vancouver, Washington, easy to fold into a Portland afternoon.
Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Fort Vancouver National Historic Site preserves the ground of the Hudson's Bay Company's western fur-trading depot, established in 1825 under Chief Factor John McLoughlin. The 191-acre site sits on the north bank of the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington, directly across the water from Portland, Oregon. The reconstructed stockade, kitchen, blacksmith shop, and trade store stand on the archaeological footprint of the original post. The site also includes the Vancouver Barracks military post and Pearson Air Museum on adjacent grounds. McLoughlin, born in Quebec in 1784, governed the Columbia Department from this fort until 1846 and was later called the Father of Oregon for sheltering early American settlers.
The original fort burned in 1866, more than two decades after the Hudson's Bay Company moved its operations to Vancouver Island. The structures visible today were rebuilt starting in the 1960s and 1970s on archaeological excavations of the original footprint. The stockade walls are hand-hewn Douglas fir; the chimneys are brick, the floors plank. Inside the stockade, the Chief Factor's House contains period furniture, the kitchen has its hearth, and the bakery still works for site demonstrations. The reconstruction is meticulous about the post's 1845 state, the year before the boundary settlement that ended British claims south of the 49th parallel.
The grounds are open to walk for free; entry to the reconstructed fort interior charges a small admission fee. The visitor centre is on East Evergreen Boulevard, with parking at the fort site itself. Costumed historical interpreters work the kitchen, blacksmith shop, and trade store on most weekend afternoons in summer, with reduced hours in winter. Pearson Air Museum on the south end of the site is part of the National Park Service unit and free to enter. The whole site folds easily into a Portland afternoon, about fifteen minutes from the Burnside Bridge.