The first fort had been destroyed by fire. The new fort was larger and sturdier, built from square cottonwood logs in a form of a hollow square. Buildings comprised three sides and a palisade with two opposing bastions providing protection. The long buildings were divided into rooms for use as dwellings, kitchen, stores, trade room, magazine or powder room, workshop and blacksmith’s forge. The entire enterprise of building and inventory was reputed to have cost $10,000.  The manager of the Fort had his own room,  private kitchen and adjacent stable. Unlike his men, the manager lived in relative comfort with personal belongings including a fancy bed, desk and other furnishings shipped from Benton.

A Blacksmith shop and workshop were located at the end of one row of buildings. Here, wagons and wheels were repaired; Horses, mules or oxen reshod. The Blacksmith also looked after whatever else was needed - from nails to door handles.

The center portion of one of the buildings became a saloon after 1874, operated by one of Fort Benton’s more notorious characters, Sol Abbott. The saloon was the scene of a shoot out that saw several men killed, and one, Fred Kanouse had to be taken by wagon to the nearest doctor in Montana to have a bullet removed from his arm. Next to the saloon was a kitchen and bedroom. The kitchen served meals for all who worked at the Fort and the bedroom was occupied by the Fort cook, George Bell.

In the northwest corner, a well was located. Trading was primarily a winter activity. Robes and hides were of the greatest worth during the winter when the fur was thick and the skin free of insects. Furs were baled and stored in a cellar to await shipment. Because the fur trade took place in the winter months, conditions were rough and the men had few luxuries. Designed for defense, the traders had well water, food in the cellars and walls to protect them.

All building windows were high and faced into the compound. The palisade walls were twelve to sixteen feet high, made from squared cottonwood logs and a bastion at each of two opposite corners. Each covered two walls. One bastion for use by riflemen the other had a three-pound cannon covering one wall and a gate. Inside a second artillery piece, a two-inch muzzle loaded cannon faced the gate. Ironically, no record of an attack on the Fort is recorded. Although rival traders attempted to take over the Fort unsuccessfully in 1872.

Fort Whoop-up became the headquarters of American activities in Canada and has supplied aids for prospectors, traders and others in the territory. It was the primary link with Fort Benton, a distribution center for most good traded or sold in southern Alberta. It was whiskey and rifles that brought Fort Hamilton both its customers and its reputation. Hides taken in trade were shipped by bull team into Benton and then to St. Louis by steamer on the Missouri River.

The use of buffalo hides for industrial belting had increased demand.

Massive bull trains, a series of up three wagons hitched together and chained to yoked trains of oxen lumbered slowly across the prairie. The wagons, usually Murphy wagons, were of two-, three- and five-ton capacities. Each team of oxen would pull up to ten tons of freight, either supplies and trade goods, or hides on the return trip. The evidence of their passing remains today. Deeply embedded ruts are still visible in places along the trail.