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Alamosa County

Alamosa County, named for the Spanish word for “cottonwood grove,” is located in the high San Luis Valley of south central Colorado. At 7,544 feet, the valley is bordered by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains on the east and the San Juan Mountains to the…

Costilla County

Costilla County lies in south-central Colorado within the San Luis Valley. It covers nearly 1,227 square miles and ranges in elevation from 8,400 to 10,300 feet. Costilla County borders Conejos County to the west, Alamosa County to the northwest,…

Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

The Great Sand Dunes sprawl along the eastern fringes of the vast San Luis Valley of south central Colorado, covering an area of nearly thirty square miles. They are the tallest aeolian (wind-produced) dunes in North America, heaping mounds of sand that…

Huerfano County

Huerfano County, named for the Spanish word for “orphan,” covers 1,750 square miles in south central Colorado, east of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and south of the Wet Mountain Valley. The southern part of Huerfano County is part of the Raton Basin, a…

Saguache County

Known as the northern gateway to the San Luis Valley, Saguache County covers 3,168 miles between the Sangre de Cristo and San Juan Mountain ranges in southern Colorado. The word Saguache, pronounced “Sa-watch,” is derived from the Ute language and means …

Sangre de Cristo Land Grant

The Sangre de Cristo land grant was a Mexican land grant possessed in January 1844 by Narciso Beaubien and Stephen Luis Lee. Covering almost 1.4 million acres in the San Luis Valley and Sangre de Cristo Mountains in southern Colorado, the grant gave rise…

Spring Creek Fire

Started by an illegal campfire on June 27, 2018, the Spring Creek Fire raced across 108,045 acres of forested foothills in southern Colorado, near La Veta Pass on the eastern edge of the San Luis Valley. By the time it was fully contained on September 10…