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Colonel Sumner opened the first Fort Union in 1851, with the intention of serving as a protector for the Santa Fe Trail from the Apaches and the Utes Indians, and military supply for the entire southwest. The second fort was opened, in 1862, because of the poor living conditions of the first fort. The last fort, the third fort, was once the largest in the southwest. The first Fort Union was established in July 1851, a few miles north of where the Santa Fe Trail split. Fort Union is located approximately eight miles northwest of present day Watrous, in the northeast section of New Mexico. Fort Union had been constructed by troop labor with little lumber, mainly poorly made adobe. The soldiers were too stubborn to ask the native people how to make adobe the correct way. Instead, they decided to take a shot in the dark, and make up their own recipe for adobe. Obviously, the fort walls, roofs and anything made of adobe q