By April 1880, most of wagons had pulled onto the flat river bottom near present day Bluff.  Calling the new settlement Bluff City, the pioneers began dividing the land into lots and building a fort, including log cabins, a school, church, dance hall and coop.  They also dug irrigation ditches from the San Juan River to irrigate their fields.  The Bluff Fort grew into an open square surrounded by cottonwood log cabins with all cabin doors and windows facing inward. 

Time has taken much of the Bluff Fort but historians and descendants of these rugged pioneers have constructed a replica (pictured here) of the fort that today serves as a free-to-the-public visitors center, historical marker and interpretive center.  Some of the buildings and artifacts however are original.