Work in progress on Cache Creek Trading Post

The work on the new Cache Creek Trading Post at the Museum of the Great Plains, 601 NW Ferris, is making progress.

On Wednesday, a backhoe continued work on removing the last remaining parts of the old trading post structure, including the fence. The project has been going on since last summer and is expected to be completed by summer 2024.

The post was built in the 1980s as a replica of “Coffee’s Station,” a trading post in the 1830s around 32 miles south of the Museum of the Great Plains, just north of the Red River. Back then, this area marked the border to Mexico, prior to Texas’ independence. The post was used for trade with the Comanche, Kiowa and Wichita tribes. In 1846, the post closed.

The replica trading post at the Museum of the Great Plains needed much work, and instead of renovating it, the museum decided to demolish it. The new trading post, therefore, won’t look very different compared to the old one.

“It’s about education,” Bill Bailey said. He is a historical restoration contractor from Colorado and the mastermind behind the project at the Museum of the Great Plains.

“We want to get a facility that educates visitors and the next generation,” he said. “It’s a fabulous opportunity to get it more historically correct for the time and region. We have an obligation to make it as accurate as we can.”

Some of the difficulties he encountered during his work are modern building requirements by the government that he has to work around.

Another difficulty lies directly in the work he’s doing.

“Every piece is custom,” he said. “It’s brutal hard physical labor.”

He has been working in this industry for 40 years, and likes it because “it’s better than building another frame house.”

The project as a whole is estimated to cost around $500,000.