Fort Whoop-Up continued as a small trading post and stage coach stop on the Whoop-Up trail until the railroad diminished its importance. It then became a ranch.  The police remained at the Fort until 1892, even after a fire in 1888 destroyed the building they rented. After Akers death in 1893, the abandoned Fort fell into disrepair. Finally in 1915, all that remained was some piles of stones and depressions where fireplaces and cellars had been.

The Blackfoot Comment

The contact with the white people had many unhappy effects on our people. Once we had been powerful and independent. As the buffalo were wiped out, we began to depend more and more on the white man’s goods.

More than 2/3 of our people had died from the white man’s diseases and starvation within the space of two generations. Within a few years, we only had only reservations left of our original territory and the old ways were gone forever.

New Era

The site of the original Fort Whoop-Up, now a federal historic site, is located at the junction of the St. Mary's and Oldman Rivers. Over the years, changes in the course of the rivers have eaten away much of the river bank and soon all evidence of the original location may be gone. In the summer of 1991, an archaeological excavation of the site was conducted by Dr. Margaret Kennedy and four students from The University of Lethbridge. The team carefully opened a number of small trenches across the site in order to determine the Fort’s original size and configuration.

Complete excavation of the archaeological remains would require careful consideration and evaluation. In 1967, an accurate replica of Fort Whoop-Up was constructed at Indian Battle Park in the river valley that divides the modern city of Lethbridge. This was a cooperative project funded by the Kinsmen Club of Lethbridge in partnership with city, provincial and federal governments.

The operation was handed over in 1973. The Fort Whoop-Up Interpretive Society exists to interpret the interaction of the two cultures at the Fort and to preserve the original site, artefacts and history of the era.  These Forts and Posts were the first permanent structures in Southern Alberta. Today, little remains other than myths, legends and names of the forts, the people who traded there and the men who manned them.