Fort Vancouver, Washington

Fort Vancouver was a 19th century fur trading outpost along the Columbia River that served as the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company in the company's Columbia District (which covered the northern half of the region known to Americans as the Oregon Country). Named for Captain George Vancouver, the fort was located on the northern bank of the Columbia River in present-day Vancouver, Washington, near Portland, Oregon. Today, a full-scale replica of the fort, with internal buildings, has been constructed and is open to the public as Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.

For more than 150 years,  Ft. Vancouver housed thousands of Army soldiers and their families.After World War II, my husband's father was the Army Chaplain for the VA Hospital at Fort Vancouver.  This weekend, after the death of Don's mother Grace, we traveled to Vancouver and met with family to plan the memorial service in December.  After the arrangements were made, we had brunch, and then went to the cemetery together, and finally visited the old family home on Ft. Vancouver where Don and his family lived for many years (until their father's retirement from the Army). They lived in a large old house on Officer's Row, just a few houses down from Grant House, where Ulysses S.Grant was stationed on September 20, 1852. Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885), then a 30-year-old Brevet Captain, later a famed Civil War general and United States President, arrived with the 4th Infantry regiment at Columbia Barracks (later called Vancouver Barracks), a U.S. Army base on the Columbia River.