I’m going to have to admit that I often times miss Rio Grande County. That’s very true of the small town of Del Norte, Colorado. It was home for many years. This is where Julie and I raised our kids. We fell in love there. It’s years with a whole lot of stories that we gather and hold close.
Trouble is with leaving a place you love, is once you’ve left, it’s never the same. There’s a magic about leaving a place you love that you can never recapture. I’ve been asked many times if I would go back.
But there’s not enough magic in the world to capture the laughter and the love we had there. Maybe in the next world, I’ll find myself back there.
One of my biggest surprises of moving there was finding that my neighbor was my high school coach, Tony Valdez. We called him “Spanky” back then. It became one of my greatest pleasures to get to know him as a person, and not just my coach. He was someone who listened to me.
Between him and Julie, Del Norte became a place of healing for me.
Enough of that. I’m getting a little sappy there, We’re supposed to be talking about history here.
Rio Grande County was founded on 10 Feb 1874 and was carved out of a piece of Conejos County.
Humans have been in the area for at least 10,000 years. In Nearby La Garita, there are petroglyphs that date back that far. The Valley is not a place to try to winter in if you’re a people who live by hunting gathering. Instead, the various tribes that resided in the area would follow the game up in the summer. Come winter or sooner, they’d depart for New Mexico and Arizona where it was warmer.
Permanent settlements didn’t happen until the 1800s. In 1833, Mexico issued a rather massive land grant called the Conejos Guadalupe land Grand. That included parts of Conejos, Rio Grande, and Saguache counties.
The idea was it would encourage colonization of the area. Those attempts to settles the region were disastrous. The native Utes and Navajo tribes made sure of that.
It wasn’t until after 1848 that attempts to settles in the area began to meet with some success. When the region was ceded to the United States and soldiers were sent into the area, full scale colonization began. One of the first such attempts occurred when 14 families came up from Santa Fe in 1859. They established the La Loma de San Jose not far from present day Del Norte. In 1865, Manuel Lucero founded the Lucero Plaza about 4 miles up the Rio Grande from Monte Vista.
Despite several Gold strikes in the area, it was Agriculture that became the fuel for the local economy. this resulted in a boom which in turn brought people to the area. Due to its large population, Rio Grande county was formed in 1874.
Because of mining and agriculture, the railroad was extended to Monte Vista. From there, it came to Del Norte, South Fork, and eventually up into Creede.
In 1883, the Presbyterian College of the Southwest was founded at Del Norte. Its mission was to train people for Pastoral duties. One of the things the College had was a full-scale observatory with a refractor telescope. At one time, it was the largest telescope west of the Mississippi.
When the college closed, the telescope went out to California and did preliminary work at Mt. Wilson to evaluate the site as an observatory. The telescope has since disappeared from history and we can only hope it’s in some garage or warehouse someplace.
Things to see –
If you like raw natural beauty, there’s plenty of that to be found in Rio Grande County. Monte Vista, Del Norte, and South Fork have managed to hold on to some of the history of the past. The mountains are full of trails waiting to be hiked.
A yearly event is the Ski-Hi Stampede in Monte Vista. This is a first class rodeo that has been held for years. It’s usually held towards the beginning or middle of August. More than a few famous cowboys have ridden there, and there’s always great concerts and dances.
Another place to check out is the Monte Vista Wildlife Preserve south of Monte Vista. It’s home to dozens of species. It’s also a stopping off point for ducks, cranes, and other animals in their yearly migrations.
Stories from Rio Grande County:
The story of two stage robbers who came to an untimely end in Del Norte. Read it here.
I carry the torch for Special Olympics. Read it here.
William R. Ablan, Police Mysteries 