| At the end of the
last Ice Age bands of nomadic
hunters wandered south into the valley in search of bison, camels,
mammoths, and smaller animals. Large bones of the extinct Bison
taylori have been found near the Great Sand Dunes, along with fluted
points typical of Folsom Man.
For more than
10,000 years the ancestors of
the Yutas, "The People of the Shining Mountains," trekked the high
mountain passes. The Utes carried their belongings on dog-powered
travois. In the 16th Century, a new enemy appears with firearms and
horses in Ute petroglyphs.
The Ancient
Roads Early Spanish Explorers, priests, adventurers and settlers found
well-worn ancient paths of the Ute, the Navajo and the Apache. Over
time, these became the rugged caminos for pack animals, wagons and
herds of livestock as Hispano settlers claimed this high fertile
Valley. A century after Columbus anchored in the Caribbean, Don Juan
de Oñate claimed all lands drained by the Rio Bravo del Norte for
King Phillip II of Spain. During the next six decades of the 1500s
four Spanish probes penetrated the Rio Grande region at the southern end
of the Valley. The Camino Real, the Old Spanish Trail and a
network of abandoned forts and encampments trace the excursions of Don
Diego de Vargas in the 1690s, Juan Maria Antonio de Rivera in 1765, and
Juan Bautista de Anza in 1779.
Royal Gifts of Land Catholic zeal and Spanish
empire building were the basis of La Merced
(the favor, or grace). Granting land was an efficient way for
Spain and Mexico to gain control of their remote northern border.
With more than a million acres, the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant was the
largest privately held piece of property ever to exist in what is now
Colorado. Small individual grants enabled even a poor person to
bring his family, a few cattle, horses and sheep and establish a
homestead.
Mexico began
issuing land grants for settlers with
the promise of land in 1821. Beginning in the late 1840s and the
1850s, settlers from the south began traveling the ancient
roads.
Founded in faith, nourished by pride of ownership, La Merced
created a stable pastoral culture, communal village systems, and a
self-sufficient way of life. La Santa Madre Tierra, the Holy
Mother Earth, was truly a gift from
God. San Luis was one of the
first settlements. Established
in 1851, San Luis is the oldest, continuously inhabited community in
Colorado. Land was laid out in long strips, called varas, and
irrigation ditches, called acequias
, were dug.
Evidence of these varas still exist today
and the acequia system is still in use in both Costilla and
Conejos Counties.
Conejos and San
Acacio were the next
communities to be built. Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church was
the first church to be built in the San Luis Valley. The parish is the
oldest parish in Colorado. The original adobe church was destroyed and
rebuilt twice with the third church now still in use today.
The oldest church building still in use in Colorado is in San Acacio
Viejo. This church remains a mission
of the Sangre de Cristo Parish in San Luis.
Strong Seeds, Good Earth, Joy and
Pain The farms of the Culebra
River villages were laid out in narrow strips from
55 to 1,000 feet long, measured in varas. Fields of wheat and
pinto beans, irrigated apple orchards, potatoes and corn crops were well
tended. A tenure system, where the owner of livestock placed them in
the care of another who received a percentage of the lambs and wool,
calves and milk, assured that the seeds of Christianity and Hispano
tradition would take root and thrive.
Woodcarvers,
santeros, sculptors and painters express the joy and
the pain of a deep Catholic faith. Preserved through time from a
complex past, fiestas, and religious observances still spring from
the heart in sacred ritual and prayer.
1852 -
Following the Mexican-American War, the San Luis Valley became part of the
Territory of Colorado in the United
States.
1858 - Fort Garland was built to
protect settlers.
1860 - Colorado's
Governor Gilpin purchased a portion of land that had
been under a Mexican Land Grant. This began another contrast in
cultures.
1860 - Settlers
claimed much of the land. By the time settlers
from the eastern states first arrived in the 1860s, bustling Hispanic
villages thrived along the Valley's fertile bottomlands. The Spanish
vocabulary of food, farming, tools and religion had already impacted
American culture.
1868 - United
States signed a treaty with the Utes and opened the
area to settlers from the U.S.
1870 - The Denver
& Rio Grande Railroad was built expanding the
opening to settlement and began a "revolution in
life."
1880 - Denver & Rio
Grande Railroad
stopped 1 miles south of Conejos in the
town of Antonito which was platted and
sold by the railroad company.
The Cumbres &
Toltec Railroad was one leg of the
Denver & Rio Grande Railroad going over Cumbres Pass to Chama, New
Mexico.
|
Petroglyphs and pictographs are found in the valley and surrounding
foothills. Native people are believed to have created these records
in stone as early as 4,000 years ago. Many of the 50 known rock art
sites in the Valley are located near ancient migration routes of early
people, making the Caminos Antiguos (ancient roads)
which were used long before Spanish explorers found
them.
