The site is well known locally and looting by artifact hunters is a serious problem that endangers the integrity of the site. Several collections in the possession of local residents are reported to have been excavated from Fort Ellsworth. During inspections of the site by KCD archeologists and Kanopolis Lake rangers over the past few years, holes dug by metal detector-using artifact collectors were encountered on several occasions. Fencing that includes a locked gate prevents direct vehicle access to the site, but artifact hunters still find means of entry by foot or by vehicle via private land. Effective policing or even frequent patrolling of the site is impractical for the one or two Kanopolis Lake rangers on duty, whose base of operations is the Lake Project Office at the opposite end of the lake, some 24 miles away.
Data recovery is seen as the best means to preserve important information before it is lost.
However, it is possible to piece together a limited picture of the fort in 1864-1865 based upon contemporary descriptions. Taken together, these accounts suggest that Fort Ellsworth consisted of a loosely organized collection of temporary structures not surrounded by any type of stockade. Dugouts and log huts served as quarters for the soldiers. Other structures include a blockhouse, a commissary, an officers' mess, and a makeshift shelter for the horses. Descriptions of permanent frame or stone buildings are conspicuously absent from the accounts, but logs were often used in the construction of the dugouts.