%1 http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/ en Cottonwood Trees http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/cottonwood-trees <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Cottonwood Trees</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-article-image.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-article-image.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div id="carouselEncyclopediaArticle" class="carousel slide" data-bs-ride="true"> <div class="carousel-inner"> <div class="carousel-item active"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--3517--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--3517.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/plains-cottonwood"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/Populus_deltoides_monilifera_USDA_0.jpg?itok=eoUdN_BP" width="1090" height="656" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/plains-cottonwood" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden"> Plains Cottonwood</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>The Plains cottonwood (Populus deltoides monolifera), seen here along the <a href="/article/arkansas-river"><strong>Arkansas River</strong></a> in southern Colorado, is among the most important tree species in Colorado. Historically, it provided food, shelter, timber, medicine, and forage for Indigenous people, <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/terminology-latino-experience-colorado"><strong>Hispanos</strong></a>, and American immigrants alike. </p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2021-01-29T17:18:28-07:00" title="Friday, January 29, 2021 - 17:18" class="datetime">Fri, 01/29/2021 - 17:18</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/cottonwood-trees" data-a2a-title="Cottonwood Trees"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fcottonwood-trees&amp;title=Cottonwood%20Trees"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>One of the most ecologically and culturally significant trees in Colorado, the plains cottonwood (<em>Populus deltoides monilifera</em>) thrives near rivers and <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/wetlands-and-riparian-areas"><strong>riparian</strong></a> areas throughout the state. It is one of the only tree species to grow on Colorado’s <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado%E2%80%99s-great-plains"><strong>Great Plains</strong></a>, which made it an important source of forage, fuel, timber, and medicine for Indigenous people, <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/terminology-latino-experience-colorado"><strong>Hispanos</strong></a>, and white immigrants. The cottonwood gets its name from the millions of cotton-like seeds that female trees release each spring.</p> <h2>Description</h2> <p>Cottonwoods are tall, deciduous trees commonly found along riverbanks and other high-moisture areas, with broad leaves and dark gray bark. They thrive at altitudes of 3,500 to 6,500 feet and reach a maximum height of around 190 feet.</p> <p>Seeding and sprouting are the cottonwood’s two major avenues of reproduction. Cottonwoods are dioecious, meaning individual trees are either male or female. Females grow necklace-like strings of seedpods that release millions of white, cottony seeds into the air, typically in June. Males grow purple flowers. Like their mountain-dwelling cousins the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/aspen-trees"><strong>aspen</strong></a>, cottonwoods are members of the poplar family, but unlike the aspen, cottonwoods do not produce clone trees from a single root system. However, like other poplars, cottonwoods will readily resprout if broken or cut down—a trait that has coevolved with breaking and browsing animals such as <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/beaver"><strong>beaver</strong></a>, <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/bison"><strong>bison</strong></a>, and <strong>horses</strong>.</p> <p>Cottonwoods live just over 100 years—a fairly short lifespan for a tree. Sometimes large branches and the inner core of the tree will die before the rest of it, contributing to its common half-dead appearance. Cottonwoods in this condition represent a hazard, as branches can break and fall at any moment.</p> <h2>Ecology</h2> <p>As the vertical sentinels of the largely horizontal plains, cottonwoods provide habitat and food for many animals, from bison to birds, squirrels, and ponies. Eagles, blue jays, magpies, and woodpeckers are among the avian species that find respite in the cottonwood’s branches. Beaver stimulate cottonwood growth by gnawing down trunks, and bison, horses, and ponies eat the tree’s bark. Smaller trees, including willow and box elder, and shrubs thrive in the shade produced by the cottonwood.</p> <h2>Indigenous Culture</h2> <p>Indigenous people who lived on the plains and in the southwest part of the state—including the <strong>Apache</strong>, <strong>Arapaho</strong>, <strong>Cheyenne</strong>, <strong>Comanche</strong>, and <strong>Navajo</strong>—revered the cottonwood as a source of medicine and for its many practical uses, especially forage and food for horses. Sun Dance artifacts were carved from cottonwood. Perhaps the most famous grove of cottonwoods in the state was the Big Timbers, a thick stand along the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/arkansas-river"><strong>Arkansas River</strong></a> in southeast Colorado. In the early 1800s, the Cheyenne and Arapaho fought the Comanche and Kiowa for control of the sacred grove, with all four nations brokering a peace in 1840. Meanwhile, an old, thick cottonwood along the <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/cache-la-poudre-river"><strong>Cache la Poudre River</strong></a> near present-day <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/fort-collins"><strong>Fort Collins</strong></a> served as a Council Tree, a meeting spot for a local band of Arapaho led by <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/teenokuhu-friday"><strong>Teenokuhu</strong> <strong>(Friday)</strong></a>.</p> <p>In one Arapaho story, a girl named Sapana climbs a tall cottonwood into the sky itself, where she is then put to work skinning bison hides by an old man who takes the form of a porcupine. The girl is helped back to earth by a buzzard and a hawk. In return for their help, the Arapaho always left at least one bison carcass for the buzzards and hawks after their hunts.</p> <h2>Hispano Culture</h2> <p>Cottonwood trees were also a prominent part of early Hispano culture. In southern Colorado’s <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/hispano-settlement-purgatoire-valley"><strong>Purgatoire</strong></a> valley, members of the Catholic Penitente Brotherhood carved <em>santos</em>, or holy images, into cottonwood roots and trunks. In the <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/san-luis-valley"><strong>San Luis Valley</strong></a>, where permanent Hispano settlements began in the 1850s, cottonwood beams supported adobe buildings, including the many <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/search/google/iglesia"><strong><em>iglesias</em> and <em>capillas</em></strong></a>—churches and chapels—established across the valley. The town and <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/alamosa-county"><strong>county</strong></a> of <strong>Alamosa</strong> were named after the Spanish word for cottonwood grove.</p> <h2>American Culture</h2> <p>In 1807 American explorer <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/zebulon-montgomery-pike"><strong>Zebulon Pike</strong></a> built his <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/pike%E2%80%99s-stockade"><strong>stockade</strong></a> in the San Luis Valley out of cottonwood logs. Other whites quickly realized the importance of cottonwoods when they began crossing the plains to Colorado during the <a href="/article/colorado-gold-rush"><strong>Gold Rush of 1858–59</strong></a>. In addition to being the only fuel aside from bison droppings, cottonwoods provided shelter and food for draft animals and acted as guideposts for immigrant parties who needed to stick to the river paths, lest they become lost in the monotonous landscape of the plains. When immigrants reached the area of present-day <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/denver"><strong>Denver</strong></a>, they found building materials scarce; as such, the first house in what became Denver City, on today’s <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/larimer-square"><strong>Larimer Street</strong></a>, was built of “round cottonwood logs” and “roofed with earth.”</p> <p>One of the first editions of the <strong><em>Rocky Mountain News</em></strong>, printed on May 14, 1859, reflects white immigrants’ views of the cottonwood as part of the strikingly beautiful scenery of springtime along the eastern slope of the <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/rocky-mountains"><strong>Rocky Mountains</strong></a>:</p> <p style="margin-left:.5in;">The prairies are putting on their robes of green and the bright verdure of the cottonwood and alder contrasts beautifully with the dark sombre [<em>sic</em>] hue of the evergreen forests.</p> <p>White immigrants’ consumption of cottonwood groves only increased as more Americans traveled west over the ensuing decades. The depletion of this important resource, as well as the simultaneous and related decline of the bison, contributed to starving conditions among many Indigenous bands in the mid- to late nineteenth century.</p> <h2>Threats</h2> <p>Since they are water-loving trees, cottonwoods are especially susceptible to drought. Millions died during the 1930s drought that contributed to the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/dust-bowl"><strong>Dust Bowl</strong></a>, and many more could be lost in the twenty-first century as a warming <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado-climate"><strong>climate</strong></a> increases drought frequency and length. In addition, dams built since the beginning of the twentieth century have lowered flow rates in the <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/south-platte-river"><strong>South Platte</strong></a>, Arkansas, and other rivers, leading to a decline in cottonwood reproduction.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-author--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-author.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-author.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-author"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-author">Author</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-author"><a href="/author/encyclopedia-staff" hreflang="und">Encyclopedia Staff</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/cottonwood" hreflang="en">cottonwood</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/cottonwoods" hreflang="en">cottonwoods</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/cottonwood-trees" hreflang="en">cottonwood trees</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/alamosa" hreflang="en">alamosa</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/alamosa-county" hreflang="en">alamosa county</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/hispano" hreflang="en">hispano</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/iglesia" hreflang="en">iglesia</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/capilla" hreflang="en">capilla</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/zebulon-pike" hreflang="en">zebulon pike</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/ecology" hreflang="en">ecology</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/riparian" hreflang="en">riparian</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/rivers" hreflang="en">rivers</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/beaver" hreflang="en">beaver</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/horses" hreflang="en">horses</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/comanche" hreflang="en">comanche</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/apache" hreflang="en">apache</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/cheyenne" hreflang="en">cheyenne</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/arapaho" hreflang="en">arapaho</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/navajo" hreflang="en">navajo</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/san-luis-valley" hreflang="en">San Luis Valley</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/arkansas-river" hreflang="en">Arkansas River</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/south-platte-river" hreflang="en">south platte river</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/cache-la-poudre-river" hreflang="en">cache la poudre river</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/council-tree" hreflang="en">council tree</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/fort-collins" hreflang="en">fort collins</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/chief-friday" hreflang="en">chief friday</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-references-html--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-references-html.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-references-html.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-references-html field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-references-html"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-references-html">References</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-references-html"><p>Michael Burman and Larry Larson, “<a href="https://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/pub/em-8800-cottonwood-establishment-survival-stand-characteristics">Cottonwood: Establishment, Survival and Stand Characteristics</a>,” Oregon State University Extension, March 2002.</p> <p>Colorado State Forest Service, “<a href="https://csfs.colostate.edu/colorado-trees/colorados-major-tree-species/#1466529004857-b98c0fa7-79c5">Plains Cottonwood</a>,” Colorado State University, n.d.</p> <p>“<a href="https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&amp;d=RMW18600215.2.18&amp;srpos=11&amp;e=-------en-20--1-byDA-img-txIN%7ctxCO%7ctxTA-cottonwood-------0-----">First House</a>,” <em>Rocky Mountain News</em>, February 15, 1860.</p> <p>Pekka Hämäläinen, <em>The Comanche Empire </em>(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009).</p> <p>Indigenouspeople.net, “<a href="http://www.indigenouspeople.net/heron.htm">The Girl Who Climbed to the Sky</a>,” n.d.</p> <p>“<a href="https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&amp;d=RMW18590514.2.51&amp;srpos=3&amp;e=-------en-20--1-byDA-img-txIN%7ctxCO%7ctxTA-cottonwood-------0-----">Local Items</a>,” <em>Rocky Mountain News</em>, May 14, 1859.</p> <p>Native Languages, “<a href="http://www.native-languages.org/legends-cottonwood.htm#:~:text=The%20cottonwood%20tree%20was%20sacred,cottonwood%20boughs%20in%20funeral%20rituals.">Native American Cottonwood Tree Mythology</a>,” n.d.</p> <p>Joe H. Offer, “<a href="https://wou.edu/geography/files/2015/05/Offer2014CapstoneFinal.pdf">Relating Upriver Dam Creation to the Regeneration of Cottonwoods (<em>Populus deltoids </em>Subsp. <em>monilifera</em>) Within the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument</a>,” Capstone, Western Oregon University, 2014.</p> <p>S. K. Wier, “<a href="http://www.westernexplorers.us/PlainsCottonwood.pdf">Plains Cottonwood</a>,” Western Explorers, 2014.</p> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p>Colorado State Forest Service, “<a href="https://csfs.colostate.edu/colorado-forests/">Colorado Forests</a>,” Colorado State University.</p> <p>Colorado State Forest Service, “<a href="https://csfs.colostate.edu/media/sites/22/2015/06/Cottonwood_Management_QuickGuide_26June2015.pdf">Cottonwood Management</a>,” Colorado State University, 2015.</p> <p>George L. Trager, “<a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/463823?journalCode=ijal">’Cottonwood Tree,’ A South-Western Linguistic Trait</a>,” <em>International Journal of American Linguistics</em> 9, no. 2, 1938.</p> <p>William A. Weber and Ronald C. Whitman, <em>Colorado Flora: Eastern Slope</em>, 4th ed. (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2012).</p> <p>William A. Weber and Ronald C. Whitman, <em>Colorado Flora: Western Slope</em>, 4th ed. (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2012).</p> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Sat, 30 Jan 2021 00:18:28 +0000 yongli 3515 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org San Luis Valley http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/san-luis-valley <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">San Luis Valley</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-article-image.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-article-image.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div id="carouselEncyclopediaArticle" class="carousel slide" data-bs-ride="true"> <div class="carousel-inner"> <div class="carousel-item active"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--3551--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--3551.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/monte-vista-wildlife-refuge"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/Monte_Vista_Wildlife_Refuge_20210314_0421_0.jpg?itok=mVYbJvB2" width="1090" height="636" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/monte-vista-wildlife-refuge" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Monte Vista Wildlife Refuge</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge is located in the San Luis Valley, a high mountain basin located in south-central Colorado. It’s one of three national wildlife refuges in the Valley that provides crucial feeding, resting, and breeding habitat for over 200 bird species and other wildlife. Alamosa and Monte Vista Refuges are located at the south-central end of the Valley and Baca Refuge is located at the north end. https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Monte_Vista/</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2020-03-13T13:26:48-06:00" title="Friday, March 13, 2020 - 13:26" class="datetime">Fri, 03/13/2020 - 13:26</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/san-luis-valley" data-a2a-title="San Luis Valley"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fsan-luis-valley&amp;title=San%20Luis%20Valley"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>Covering nearly 8,000 square miles in southern Colorado, the San Luis Valley is the largest valley in the state and the largest high-altitude desert in North America. Known as “the Valley” by locals and other Coloradans, the San Luis Valley is bordered by the <strong>Sangre de Cristo</strong> <strong>Mountains</strong> to the east, the <strong>Sawatch Mountains</strong> to the north, the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/san-juan-mountains"><strong>San Juan Mountains</strong></a> to the west, and the Rio Grande Valley of northern New Mexico to the south. The San Luis Valley has a population of about 16,550 and encompasses five counties: <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/alamosa-county"><strong>Alamosa</strong></a>, <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/conejos-county"><strong>Conejos</strong></a>, <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/costilla-county"><strong>Costilla</strong></a>, <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/rio-grande-county"><strong>Rio Grande</strong></a>, and <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/saguache-county"><strong>Saguache</strong></a>.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>With an average altitude of 7,664 feet and an average annual rainfall below ten inches, the valley’s environment characterized as high desert. The <strong>Rio Grande River </strong>flows through the center of the valley, racing out of the San Juan Mountains near <strong>South Fork</strong>, bending southeast through <strong>Alamosa</strong>, the valley’s most populous city, and then south toward the New Mexico border. Despite the dry climate, the Rio Grande and the valley’s underground water sources make it suitable for agriculture—currently the region’s primary industry. The valley is known for its cultural diversity, with 45 percent of the population recorded as “Hispanic” (although many identify as Hispano, descendants of the valley’s original Mexican families). Many of the valley’s towns and buildings, such as its many <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/search/google/capilla%20%22San%20Luis%20Valley%22"><strong>Catholic churches</strong></a>, maintain the look and feel of their Spanish or Mexican origins.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Before it was permanently occupied, the San Luis Valley was traversed by a wide range of indigenous people, from <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/folsom-people"><strong>Folsom</strong></a> cultures thousands of years ago to Diné (<strong>Navajo)</strong>, <strong>Pueblo</strong>, and Nuche (<a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/search/google/ute"><strong>Ute</strong></a>) peoples in more recent centuries. In the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Spain was the first European nation to lay claim to the valley but found it difficult to occupy because of the opposition of the Utes. Looking to populate its northern frontier, an independent Mexico established <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/mexican-land-grants-colorado"><strong>land grants</strong></a> in the valley during the 1830s and 1840s, before the United States incorporated the region as a result of its annexation of the Republic of Texas in 1845 and the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/treaty-guadalupe-hidalgo"><strong>Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo</strong></a> three years later.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Geology and Geography</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>The San Luis Valley measures more than 100 miles north-south and about 65 miles east-west. It was formed during the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado-geology"><strong>Laramide Orogeny</strong></a>, the 30-million-year period of mountain building that raised the modern <a href="/article/rocky-mountains"><strong>Rocky Mountains</strong></a>. During the uplift of the Sangre de Cristos and the San Juans, the flat area in between dropped off and settled into a slightly eastern-sloped plane that became the valley. Around 500,000 years ago, the valley was covered by a huge lake that measured 200 feet deep in some places. The lake eventually drained, exposing deep layers of sediment that created the broad, alluvial expanse of today’s valley.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Because of its unique geology, size, and location, the San Luis Valley possesses some of Colorado’s most distinctive natural features. Among the most striking are the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/great-sand-dunes-national-park-and-preserve"><strong>Great Sand Dunes</strong></a>, heaps of sand up to 750 feet tall piled against the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the valley’s northeast section. Formed over millions of years, the dunes are composed of dust and desert sand blown from the west side of the valley and other parts of the American Southwest.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The valley also contains many mountain passes that have for millennia granted people and animals access to adjoining regions, including the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/colorado%E2%80%99s-great-plains"><strong>Great Plains</strong></a> via <strong>La Veta Pass</strong>, the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/gunnison-river"><strong>Gunnison</strong></a> valley via <strong>Cochetopa Pass</strong>, the upper <a href="/article/arkansas-river"><strong>Arkansas</strong></a> Valley and <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/park-county"><strong>South Park</strong></a> via <strong>Poncha Pass</strong>, the Huerfano Valley via <strong>Mosca Pass</strong>, the San Juan Mountains via <strong>Wolf Creek Pass</strong>, and the <strong>Four Corners </strong>area via <strong>Cumbres Pass</strong>. In addition, the New Mexican communities of Taos and Santa Fé could be reached via the Rio Grande Valley to the south.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Indigenous History</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Owing to its broad expanse, extreme weather, and multiple mountain passes, the San Luis Valley was historically used more as a corridor than as a site of permanent community. The earliest human presence is documented by projectile points left by Folsom people almost 10,000 years ago; archaeological evidence suggests that those people, as well as later <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/archaic-period-colorado"><strong>Archaic</strong></a> cultures, followed large game such as <a href="/article/bison"><strong>bison</strong></a> into the valley on seasonal treks between the mountains and plains.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In later centuries, <strong>Blanca Peak</strong>, a <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/fourteeners"><strong>Fourteener</strong></a> and tallest of the peaks ringing the valley, was thought to be a sacred site marking the eastern boundary of the Navajo Nation. Beginning around 1300, Pueblo people ventured into the valley to hunt and collect valuable resources, such as feathers and turquoise. Ute people began using the valley after about 1400, hunting bison and other large game and gathering roots, nuts, and berries along its main waterways. Over the next several hundred years, the San Luis Valley was used and traversed by the <strong>Comanche</strong>, <strong>Kiowa</strong>, <strong>Arapaho</strong>, and <strong>Cheyenne</strong>, but it was most frequently occupied by three distinct bands of Utes: the Tabeguache, Muache, and Capote. The Utes used the valley’s various passes to travel to distant hunting grounds and to their winter camps in present-day <a href="/article/glenwood-springs"><strong>Glenwood Springs</strong></a> and <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/pagosa-springs"><strong>Pagosa Springs</strong></a>. Along Rock Creek, which led to Pagosa Springs, they added their own <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/rock-art-colorado"><strong>rock art</strong></a> to older indigenous pictographs.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Spanish Period, c. 1598–1821</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>In 1598 the Spanish explorer Juan de Oñate claimed the valley for King Phillip II of Spain. In northern New Mexico, he established two towns, San Juan de los Caballeros and San Gabriel de Yunque. Hearing about plentiful game to the north in the San Luis Valley, Oñate sent an expedition there to hunt bison. The party came across a village of about fifty Ute lodges; the Utes greeted them warmly, and some of the Ute men volunteered to help the inexperienced Spaniards hunt bison. The Spaniards botched the hunt, but they returned back to their own villages knowing that they might at least have willing trade partners to the north.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The Spaniards’ relations with their Pueblo neighbors soured immediately, as they pressed the Indians into slavery. Their relations with the Utes remained friendly until the 1630s, when Spaniards attacked a band and took about eighty Utes as slaves. Thereafter, Utes began raiding Spanish parties and communities for livestock and goods.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the San Luis Valley remained largely indigenous, barely even a remote outpost of the Spanish Empire. Comanche raids on New Mexican communities increased during the eighteenth century; in 1779 the Spanish war party of <strong>Juan Bautista de Anza</strong> picked up Ute and <strong>Jicarilla Apache</strong> warriors in the valley on its way to fight the Comanche leader <strong>Cuerno Verde</strong>.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The first American description of the San Luis Valley was offered by the explorer <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/zebulon-montgomery-pike"><strong>Zebulon Pike</strong></a> in 1807. After trying and failing to climb <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/pikes-peak"><strong>Pikes Peak</strong></a>, the expedition moved southwest into Spanish territory in the San Luis Valley. “The great and lofty mountains . . . seemed to surround the luxuriant vale, crowned with perennial flowers, like a terrestrial paradise, shut out from the view of man,” Pike wrote in his journal. Fearing attacks by Spaniards and Indians, Pike had his men build a <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/pike%E2%80%99s-stockade"><strong>stockade</strong></a> on the banks of <strong>Conejos Creek</strong>. Despite his precautions, Pike and his men were arrested by Spanish dragoons and imprisoned in Santa Fé for several months.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>After Pike, French, American, and Mexican fur traders traversed the San Luis Valley on their way to the beaver-laden mountains and the regional trade nexus of Taos. In the valley itself, small trading camps sprung up along Saguache Creek (from the Ute word <em>Saguguachipa</em>, “blue water”) below Poncha Pass.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Mexican Period, c. 1821–45</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>After winning independence from Spain in 1821, the new nation of Mexico used land grants to encourage the occupation of its northern frontier as a bulwark against rising American influence in the Southwest. In 1833 the Mexican government awarded the Conejos Grant, roughly spanning land between the Rio Grande and Conejos Creek near present-day Alamosa, to fifty families. However, Navajo drove off the would-be settlers.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Other Mexican land grants in the valley included the Beaubien-Miranda Grant (later known as the Maxwell), the Luis Maria Baca Grant No. 4, and the Sangre de Cristo Grant, which later became Costilla County. These were all issued in 1843–44 but were not settled until several years later on account of indigenous resistance and the outbreak of the <strong>Mexican-American War</strong> (1846–48).</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>American Period</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>The United States acquired part of the San Luis Valley when it annexed Texas in 1845. Over the next year, an influx of slaveholding Americans in eastern Texas and boundary disputes between Mexico and the United States led the American government to provoke a war with its southern neighbor. When it ended in 1848, the United States acquired a huge section of northwest Mexico that eventually formed part or all of the states of California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado—including the rest of the San Luis Valley.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>After the Mexican-American War, US Army incursions into the San Luis Valley persuaded the Muache and Capote Utes to make a peace agreement at <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/treaty-abiqui%C3%BA"><strong>Abiquiú</strong></a>, New Mexico, in 1849. The agreement encouraged New Mexicans (recently made US citizens by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo) to settle the former Mexican land grants. In 1851, on the Sangre de Cristo Grant in the southeastern part of the valley, Hispanos established <a href="/article/san-luis"><strong>San Luis</strong></a>, the first permanent town in what would become Colorado. The next year, the townspeople finished an <strong>acequia</strong>, the <strong>San Luis People’s Ditch</strong>, which was the first <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/water-law"><strong>water right</strong></a> in Colorado.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>A number of other towns, built in the Spanish style with central plazas, popped up along Culebra and Costilla Creeks in the ensuing years, and the Conejos Grant was also settled. Despite the treaty, Utes continued to raid Anglo communities, as the influx of newcomers threatened their food supply. In 1852 the US Army built Fort Massachusetts (later <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/fort-garland-0"><strong>Fort Garland</strong></a>) south of La Veta Pass, firmly establishing the American presence in the valley. The fort did little to discourage Ute raids; still, in the 1860s, more Americans arrived looking to set up <a href="/article/homestead"><strong>homesteads</strong></a> on fertile lands within the valley. The Denver and San Luis Valley Wagon Road Company linked these early settlements to <a href="/article/denver"><strong>Denver</strong></a> via a toll road.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>One of the new immigrants was <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/otto-mears"><strong>Otto Mears</strong></a>, a man of great ambition who came to the fledgling town of <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/saguache-0"><strong>Saguache</strong></a> in 1866. Mears developed what was likely an ancient trail over Poncha Pass into a toll road, linking the San Luis Valley with mining districts in South Park and the Upper Arkansas Valley. Mears also brought modern farming equipment, including a reaper and thresher, envisioning the valley as a great supplier of produce to mining camps in the mountains. Another <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/ute-treaty-1868"><strong>treaty</strong></a> with the Utes in <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/ute-treaty-1868"><strong>1868</strong></a> gave Americans near-exclusive rights to the valley, as the Capote and Muache bands—along with several others—agreed to move to a vast reservation on Colorado’s <a href="/article/western-slope"><strong>Western Slope</strong></a>.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Mears’s vision for the valley was further realized after the <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/brunot-agreement"><strong>Brunot Agreement</strong></a> in 1873, in which the Ute leader <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/ouray"><strong>Ouray</strong></a> agreed to cede the San Juan Mountains to the United States. In the mountains around today’s <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/silverton-0"><strong>Silverton</strong></a> and <a href="/article/ouray-town"><strong>Ouray</strong></a>, prospectors found rich veins of silver and gold, and farmers in the San Luis Valley supplied them with wheat flour, potatoes, and other produce.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>New Connections and New Cultures</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>In 1878 the town of Alamosa was established when the <strong>Denver &amp; Rio Grande Railroad</strong> moved the entire town of Fort Garland to a site along the Rio Grande near the valley’s center. In the 1880s, the tiny shepherd town of <strong>Antonito</strong> also became an important stop along the railroad as it built south from Alamosa into New Mexico and on to the San Juan mining camps.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>The arrival of railroads brought more Euro-Americans into the San Luis Valley, causing friction between the new arrivals and the established Hispano population. Nowhere was this more evident than in local <strong>Range Wars</strong>, in which predominantly white cattlemen intimidated mostly Hispano sheepherders as both vied for access to the same grazing land.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Though they sometimes sparred with each other, residents of the San Luis Valley continued to develop its agricultural economy over the next several decades, until the <strong>Great Depression</strong> brought hard times in the 1930s. Farm prices plummeted; the price of potatoes, a staple valley crop, dropped from four dollars per hundredweight in 1920 to thirty-five cents by 1932. In Saguache County, farmers reported 9,444 acres of crop failure in 1934, compared to about 3,500 in 1929. Similar trends across the valley forced thousands to move elsewhere. <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/new-deal-colorado"><strong>New Deal</strong></a> programs helped improve the valley’s infrastructure and schools, but today the region remains one of the poorest in Colorado.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In the late twentieth century, the National Park Service and a coalition of valley residents organized to protect its water resources from several development projects; the campaigns resulted in the formation of the <strong>Citizens for San Luis Valley Water</strong> and, later, the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/san-luis-valley-ecosystem-council"><strong>San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council</strong></a> (SLVEC). Today the SLVEC protects some 3.1 million acres of public lands in the valley from development. On the heels of the water protection campaign of the 1990s, Great Sand Dunes National Monument—established in 1932—was designated a national park so it could be better protected from development.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Today</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Nowadays, most communities in the San Luis Valley are heavily dependent on agriculture and, to a lesser extent, tourism. Major crops include wheat, oats, barley, lettuce, potatoes, and peas. In addition to the Sand Dunes, other tourist attractions accessible via the valley include <strong>Zapata Falls</strong> on the western slope of the Sangres and <strong>Wolf Creek Ski Area </strong>in the mountains of neighboring <a href="http://www.coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/mineral-county"><strong>Mineral County</strong></a>. In addition, hunters, anglers, and other outdoor recreation enthusiasts frequent the <strong>Monte Vista Wildlife Refuge</strong>, <strong>Baca Wildlife Refuge</strong>, and <a href="/article/us-forest-service-colorado"><strong>Rio Grande National Forest</strong></a>.</p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/history-colorado-colorado-historical-society"><strong>History Colorado</strong></a> (formerly the Colorado Historical Society) maintains a museum at the site of Fort Garland, as well as a reconstructed version of Pike’s stockade. As it has in the past, the valley’s isolation remains the most challenging obstacle to economic growth and development, even as it offers some of the most stunning scenery, most distinct landscapes, and richest cultural heritage in Colorado.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-author--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-author.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-author.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-author"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-author">Author</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-author"><a href="/author/encyclopedia-staff" hreflang="und">Encyclopedia Staff</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/san-luis-valley" hreflang="en">San Luis Valley</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/alamosa" hreflang="en">alamosa</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/conejos" hreflang="en">Conejos</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/san-luis" hreflang="en">san luis</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/rio-grande" hreflang="en">rio grande</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/del-norte" hreflang="en">del norte</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/antonito" hreflang="en">antonito</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/costilla" hreflang="en">costilla</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/mexican-american-war-0" hreflang="en">mexican american war</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/mexican-land-grants" hreflang="en">mexican land grants</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/sangre-de-cristos" hreflang="en">sangre de cristos</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/saguache" hreflang="en">saguache</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/otto-mears" hreflang="en">Otto Mears</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/denver-rio-grande" hreflang="en">denver &amp; rio grande</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/great-sand-dunes" hreflang="en">great sand dunes</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/utes" hreflang="en">utes</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/ute-indians" hreflang="en">ute indians</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/kiowa" hreflang="en">kiowa</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/comanche" hreflang="en">comanche</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/spanish" hreflang="en">spanish</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/spaniards" hreflang="en">spaniards</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/catholic-church" hreflang="en">catholic church</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-references-html--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-references-html.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-references-html.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-references-html field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-references-html"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-references-html">References</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-references-html"><p>James S. Aber, “<a href="http://academic.emporia.edu/aberjame/field/rocky_mt/zapata.htm">San Luis Valley, Colorado</a>,” 2002.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Stephen Harding Hart and Archer Butler Hulbert, eds., <em>The Southwestern Journals of Zebulon Pike, 1806–1807 </em>(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Martha Quillen, “<a href="https://www.cozine.com:8443/2001-december/colorados-mexican-land-grants">Colorado’s Mexican Land Grants</a>,” <em>Colorado Central Magazine</em>, December 1, 2001.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>San Luis Valley Development Resources Group, “<a href="https://www.slvdrg.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/A.-Area-Description-and-Development-History.pdf">A. Area Description and Development History</a>,” 2013 Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>San Luis Valley Development Resources Group and San Luis Valley Council of Governments, “<a href="https://www.slvdrg.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/2015-SLV-Statistical-Profile.pdf">2015 SLV Statistical Profile</a>,” 2015.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>R. Laurie Simmons and Marilyn A. Martorano, “<a href="https://archaeologycolorado.org/sites/default/files/Simmons%20and%20Martorano%202007%20Trujilo%20Homesteads.pdf">Guns, Fire, and Sheep: History and Archaeology of the Trujillo Homesteads in the San Luis Valley, Colorado</a>,” <em>Southwestern Lore </em>73, no. 3 (2007).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Virginia McConnell Simmons, <em>The San Luis Valley: Land of the Six-Armed Cross</em>, 2nd ed. (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 1999).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Department of Agriculture, “<a href="https://usda.library.cornell.edu/" title=" (external link)">Colorado</a>,” US Census of Agriculture, Vol. 1, Part 41 (1934).</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p>Robert Buchanan, “<a href="https://nmgs.nmt.edu/publications/guidebooks/downloads/22/22_p0243_p0245.pdf">The San Luis Valley—A Land of Paradox</a>,” in <em>San Luis Basin (Colorado)</em>, ed. H. L. James (New Mexico Geological Society 22nd Annual Fall Field Conference Guidebook, 1971).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Michael G. Geary, <em>Sea of Sand: A History of Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve </em>(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Michael N. Machette, David W. Marchetti, and Ren A. Thompson, “<a href="https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2007/1193/pdf/OF07-1193_ChG.pdf">Ancient Lake Alamosa and the Pliocene to Middle Pleistocene Evolution of the Rio Grande</a>,” in <em>2007 Rocky Mountain Section Friends of the Pleistocene Field Trip—Quaternary Geology of the San Luis Basin of Colorado and New Mexico</em>, by Michael N. Machette, Mary-Margaret Coates, and Margo L. Johnson, September 7–9, 2007.</p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="https://www.museumtrail.org/">Museums of the San Luis Valley</a></p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="http://slvhistoricalsociety.org/">San Luis Valley Historical Society</a></p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Forest Service, “<a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/riogrande/learning/history-culture/?cid=stelprdb5172158">History and Culture of the San Luis Valley Area</a>,” n.d.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Forest Service, “<a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/main/riogrande/">Rio Grande National Forest</a>,” n.d.</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Fri, 13 Mar 2020 19:26:48 +0000 yongli 3167 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org Bain’s Department Store http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/bains-department-store <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Bain’s Department Store</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2017-05-17T15:34:31-06:00" title="Wednesday, May 17, 2017 - 15:34" class="datetime">Wed, 05/17/2017 - 15:34</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/bains-department-store" data-a2a-title="Bain’s Department Store"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Fbains-department-store&amp;title=Bain%E2%80%99s%20Department%20Store"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>In 1935 Joe Bain and his son, Victor, opened Bain’s Department Store on Main Street in <strong>Alamosa</strong>. After Bain’s closed, Victor Bain continued to own the building for decades, renting it out to a variety of automobile dealers and appliance shops. In 1994 the local nonprofit <strong>La Puente</strong> acquired the building and, after an extensive restoration, converted it into a thrift store with low-income housing on the second floor (509 Hunt Ave, Alamosa, CO 81101).</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Depression-era Department Store</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Bain’s Department Store is an L-shaped, two-story brick commercial building near the intersection of Main Street and Hunt Avenue in Alamosa, with separate storefronts at 510 Main and 509 Hunt. Sources on the building’s early years are sketchy and somewhat contradictory, but it seems that Joe Bain acquired the land for the building between 1934 and 1936. Newspaper ads indicate that Bain’s Department Store opened in the Main Street portion of the building at the end of November 1935, but the Hunt Avenue half was probably not ready until spring 1936. When it opened, Bain’s was the largest retail store in the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/san-luis-valley"><strong>San Luis Valley</strong></a>, selling dry goods in the Main Street storefront and groceries in the Hunt Avenue storefront; an open passageway connected the two halves.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Bain’s was an unusually large commercial building for a community the size of Alamosa, especially during the <strong>Great Depression</strong>, when the government funded most construction. It was the first new commercial building in town since the start of the Depression. The construction of the store in 1935 served as a welcome sign that the town’s economy was finally beginning to recover; just two years later, a record $440,000 poured into construction projects in Alamosa.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Before that recovery was fully underway, however, the Bain family had been forced to stretch its resources to build a new commercial building in the midst of the Depression. Unable to afford new materials, the Bains (like many others at the time) used recycled bricks, iron posts, ceiling tiles, windows, and floorboards from other old buildings to build their store. Most of the building, in fact, shows signs of previous use. Despite the hodgepodge of materials, construction was sound. Even eight decades later, the building shows no sign of cracking or leaning.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>To help make ends meet, the Bains added a second floor and divided it into nineteen apartments that were rented out. The second-floor hallways included large skylights, and each apartment had a window from its kitchen to the hallway to let in natural light. Aerial photographs indicate that the second floor was added in 1936 or 1937, after the first-floor department store was already open. This may have been part of an evolving strategy to generate income from the building. Having three distinct businesses—department store, grocery store, and apartments—under one roof was a form of insurance against hard times.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Retail and Rentals</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Bain’s Department Store did not last long. In the 1940s, Joe Bain was convicted of selling rustled cattle meat and committed suicide on the morning of his sentencing. The charges were later shown to be fabricated. Victor Bain closed the store and moved to <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/pueblo-0"><strong>Pueblo</strong></a>, but he maintained ownership of the building, renting it to companies such as the deVorss Automobile Dealership, Hub May Implements, Acheson’s Attic, Trautwein Appliance, and a Suzuki motorcycle shop. Sometimes one company occupied the whole building, and sometimes two stores rented the building at once, one operating out of the Main Street entrance and the other out of the Hunt Avenue entrance. When Miles and Alice Acheson of Acheson’s Attic rented the whole building for their furniture, hardware, and appliance shop from 1954 to 1977, they also managed the apartments on the second floor.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In 1983 Victor Bain sold the entire building to Harvey and Christine Heersink. The building already had incomplete partitions between the two halves, and the Heersinks sealed them off to divide the building into separate structures. In 1985 they sold the Hunt Avenue portion to Francis and Catherine Snider.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>La Puente Thrift Store and Housing</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>In 1994 the Heersinks sold the Main Street building to La Puente, a local nonprofit serving the homeless and other at-risk populations in the San Luis Valley. La Puente undertook an extensive renovation of the building. The purchase and restoration effort benefited from local volunteer labor and community contributions, including important early support from Bob Foote at San Luis Valley Federal Savings and Loan. The restoration effort also received funding from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Topeka; the <strong>State Historical Fund</strong>; the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority; the Johnson Fund; the Colorado Division of Housing; and the <strong>Coors</strong>, Gates, and <strong>Boettcher</strong> Foundations. La Puente opened a thrift store called Rainbow’s End on the main floor and rented the restored second-floor apartments to low-income tenants.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>When La Puente placed the Main Street building on the State Register of Historic Properties in 1995, research revealed the connection between the Main Street and Hunt Avenue buildings. In 1998 La Puente acquired the Hunt Avenue building from the Sniders and removed the internal partitions. Now the entire Bain’s building looks much as it originally did, with an L-shaped retail space below and apartments above. La Puente uses the income from the building’s thrift store and apartment rentals to fund the organization’s homeless shelter.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-author--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-author.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-author.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-author"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-author">Author</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-author"><a href="/author/encyclopedia-staff" hreflang="und">Encyclopedia Staff</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/alamosa" hreflang="en">alamosa</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/department-stores" hreflang="en">department stores</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/la-puente" hreflang="en">La Puente</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-references-html--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-references-html.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-references-html.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-references-html field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-references-html"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-references-html">References</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-references-html"><p>Lance Cheslock, Sallie Beach, and Medeita Gregg, “Bain’s Department Store,” Colorado State Register of Historic Properties Nomination Form (June 1998).</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p>Leland Feitz, <em>Alamosa: The San Luis Valley’s Big City</em> (Colorado Springs: Little London Press, 1976).</p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="https://www.lapuentehome.org/">La Puente</a></p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Wed, 17 May 2017 21:34:31 +0000 yongli 2579 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org Alamosa County http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/alamosa-county <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Alamosa County</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: x field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-article-image.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-article-image.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div id="carouselEncyclopediaArticle" class="carousel slide" data-bs-ride="true"> <div class="carousel-inner"> <div class="carousel-item active"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--1509--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--1509.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/great-sand-dunes"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/GreatSandDunes_0.jpg?itok=CzbPvWTN" width="1000" height="750" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/great-sand-dunes" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Great Sand Dunes</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>With heights of up to 750 feet, the <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/great-sand-dunes-national-park-and-preserve"><strong>Great Sand Dunes</strong></a> in <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/alamosa-county"><strong>Alamosa County</strong></a> are the highest sand dunes in North America. They were formed around 12,000 years ago, as wind continuously blew sediment from the upper <strong>Rio Grande River</strong> westward across the San Luis Valley, piling it at the foot of the <strong>Sangre de Cristo Mountains</strong>.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> <div class="carousel-item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--1508--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--1508.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/alamosa-county"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/AlamosaCounty_0.png?itok=weLpWroi" width="800" height="579" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/alamosa-county" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Alamosa County</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p>Alamosa County was established in 1913, thanks to efforts from Colorado state senator William "Billy" Adams.</p> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> <div class="carousel-item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * node--1731--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--1731.html.twig x node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig * node--image.html.twig * node--article-detail-image.html.twig * node.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image--image.html.twig * field--node--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--field-encyclopedia-image.html.twig * field--image.html.twig x field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-encyclopedia-image field--type-image field--label-hidden field__item"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_formatter' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> <a href="/image/alamosa-county-google-map"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image_style' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'image' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <img loading="lazy" src="/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/Alamosa_County_0.jpg?itok=BR44_0wm" width="1090" height="754" alt="" typeof="foaf:Image" class="image-style-wide" /> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-style.html.twig' --> </a> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/image-formatter.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field.html.twig' --> <div class="carousel-caption d-none d-md-block"> <h5><a href="/image/alamosa-county-google-map" rel="bookmark"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--title--image.html.twig x field--node--title.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--title.html.twig * field--string.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden">Alamosa County on Google Map</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--title.html.twig' --> </a></h5> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--image.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig * field--node--image.html.twig * field--body.html.twig x field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> <div class="clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><div class="widget-pane-section-facts-description">Alamosa County's seat is Alamosa,&nbsp;Spanish for&nbsp;"cottonwood grove." The county&nbsp;currently has a population of&nbsp;16,253.</div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--text-with-summary.html.twig' --> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/content/node--image--article-detail-image.html.twig' --> </div> </div> <button class="carousel-control-prev" type="button" data-bs-target="#carouselEncyclopediaArticle" data-bs-slide="prev"> <span class="carousel-control-prev-icon" aria-hidden="true"></span> <span class="visually-hidden">Previous</span> </button> <button class="carousel-control-next" type="button" data-bs-target="#carouselEncyclopediaArticle" data-bs-slide="next"> <span class="carousel-control-next-icon" aria-hidden="true"></span> <span class="visually-hidden">Next</span> </button> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--field-article-image--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--uid--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--uid.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--uid.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'username' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> <span lang="" about="/users/yongli" typeof="schema:Person" property="schema:name" datatype="">yongli</span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/user/username.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--uid.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--created--encyclopedia-article.html.twig x field--node--created.html.twig * field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field--created.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <span class="field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden"> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'time' --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> <time datetime="2016-06-24T16:36:06-06:00" title="Friday, June 24, 2016 - 16:36" class="datetime">Fri, 06/24/2016 - 16:36</time> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/time.html.twig' --> </span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/field/field--node--created.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'addtoany_standard' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * addtoany-standard--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * addtoany-standard--node.html.twig x addtoany-standard.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <span class="a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list" data-a2a-url="http://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/alamosa-county" data-a2a-title="Alamosa County"><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share" href="https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Fcoloradoencyclopedia.org%2Farticle%2Falamosa-county&amp;title=Alamosa%20County"></a><a class="a2a_button_facebook"></a><a class="a2a_button_twitter"></a><a class="a2a_button_email"></a></span> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'modules/contrib/addtoany/templates/addtoany-standard.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--body--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--body.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--body.html.twig * field--text-with-summary.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item" id="id-body"><p>Alamosa County, named for the Spanish word for “<a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/cottonwood-trees"><strong>cottonwood</strong></a> grove,” is located in the high <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/san-luis-valley"><strong>San Luis</strong> <strong>Valley</strong></a> of south central Colorado. At 7,544 feet, the valley is bordered by the <strong>Sangre de Cristo Mountains</strong> on the east and the <a href="/article/san-juan-mountains"><strong>San Juan Mountains</strong></a> to the west. Alamosa County encompasses 723 square miles of the valley and is bordered by <a href="/article/saguache-county"><strong>Saguache County</strong></a> to the north, <strong><a href="/article/huerfano-county">Huerfano County</a> </strong>to the east, <a href="/article/rio-grande-county"><strong>Rio Grande County</strong></a> to the west, <strong><a href="/article/costilla-county">Costilla County</a> </strong>to the southeast, and <a href="/article/conejos-county"><strong>Conejos County</strong></a> to the southwest.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>More than half of the county’s 15,000 residents live in the county seat of <strong>Alamosa</strong>, home to <strong>Adams State University</strong> and Trinidad State Junior College. Like most of the valley, the county is dry but heavily irrigated, using <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/water-colorado"><strong>water</strong></a> from the <strong>Rio Grande River </strong>and other mountain sources to produce potatoes, barley, alfalfa, wheat, and other crops. <strong>Blanca Peak</strong>, the fourth-highest mountain in Colorado, towers above the county’s eastern border at 14,345 feet. Other natural and scenic areas include the <a href="/article/great-sand-dunes-national-park-and-preserve"><strong>Great Sand Dunes National Park</strong></a>, Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge, part of the Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge, San Luis State Park, and part of the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Native Americans</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Before the arrival of Europeans in the sixteenth century, the San Luis Valley was occupied by <a href="/search/google/ute"><strong>Ute</strong></a> Indians, primarily the Capote and Mouache bands. The Utes were hunters, subsisting on <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/rocky-mountain-elk"><strong>elk</strong></a>, deer, and other mountain game. They also gathered a wide assortment of roots, including the versatile yucca root, and wild berries. The first Spanish explorer to enter the San Luis Valley was Juan de Zalvídar in 1596. European contact brought smallpox and other <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/impact-disease-native-americans"><strong>diseases</strong></a> that ravaged local Ute populations, but it also brought the horse, which allowed the Southern Ute bands to expand their hunting grounds.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Hispanos</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Although it remained mostly in the hands of the Utes, the San Luis Valley was officially Spanish until Mexico won independence in 1821. The area then became part of the United States after the Mexican-American War ended in 1848. In 1849 the Utes signed a treaty with the US government, agreeing to allow safe passage for American citizens as well as the construction of forts on Ute lands in exchange for <a href="/article/indian-annuities"><strong>annuities</strong></a> - supplies and payments to be issued to the tribes by the government. In 1858 the army established <a href="/article/fort-garland-0"><strong>Fort Garland</strong></a> at the east end of the valley.</p>&#13; &#13; <p><strong>Hispanos</strong>, descendants of Spanish settlers who occupied the American Southwest before it became US territory, set up farming and ranching communities in the San Luis Valley, some of which helped supply the American forts. For example, the <a href="/article/trujillo-homesteads"><strong>Trujillo</strong></a> family, who lived through the valley’s transfer from Mexican to American administration, was one of the most prominent Hispano ranching families during this time. Using American laws designed to open former Native American lands for settlement, the Trujillos expanded their ranch until they had some 1,500 acres by 1902. Today, the population of Alamosa County is nearly 40 percent Latino, a reflection of the San Luis Valley’s diverse cultural roots. As Anglo- and European American farmers and ranchers began settling the region in the late nineteenth century, conflicts over grazing territory broke out between white cattle ranchers and Hispano sheep ranchers.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In 1861, the area of Alamosa County, along with most of the San Luis Valley, became part of the <a href="/article/colorado-territory"><strong>Colorado Territory</strong></a>. Two years later, at Conejos, the Utes signed another treaty with the United States that nullified their rights to land and minerals in parts of the valley already occupied by whites. By 1873, the <strong>Southern Ute Indian Reservation </strong>was established in southwestern Colorado, some eighty miles west of the San Luis Valley. By the early 1880s, the remaining Capote Utes were forced out of the valley and onto the reservation.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>County Development</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>The <strong>Denver &amp; Rio Grande Western Railroad </strong>brought the new town of Alamosa with it when it first reached the San Luis Valley in 1878. Nearly 100 buildings—including houses, stores, and churches—were loaded onto flatbed cars in Garland City, hauled some thirty miles into the valley, and set up along the railroad’s newest terminus. The remarkable experience of guests at Joe Perry’s hotel, the Perry House, shows just how fast the town relocated: the day of the move, Perry served his guests breakfast in Garland City, and then served them dinner in Alamosa, in the very same building. As rail lines sprang up traveling to and from the southern coal fields and the mountain mines, Alamosa became the regional hub, and the most important town in what was then Conejos County.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Ranchers began establishing <a href="/article/homestead"><strong>homesteads</strong></a> in the area during the 1880s. Other towns established in the late nineteenth century included <strong>Mosca</strong> in 1890 and Garrison in 1891; Garrison was later renamed Hooper because the postal service kept confusing it with Gunnison.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In 1913 state senator <strong>William H. “Billy” Adams</strong> introduced the bill that carved Alamosa County out of Conejos County. The new county was immediately saddled with debt owed to Conejos County and could not afford to build a <a href="https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/alamosa-county-courthouse"><strong>courthouse</strong></a> until 1938.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Adams, however, did not let the county’s debt keep him from furthering its development. In 1921, after three decades of trying, he founded Alamosa County’s first college, Adams State Normal School. He envisioned the school as a center for training teachers from Colorado’s rural areas. Its first graduate was Harriet Dalzell Hester, the college’s future librarian, in August 1926. Between 1950 and 1969, enrollment at the college surged from 349 full-time students to 3,073. The increase during that period was largely due to the construction of many new buildings, including dormitories, lecture halls, and a million-dollar science and industrial arts building. Adams also left $10,000 to the college when he died in 1954. The school is now known as Adams State University and has more than 3,400 undergraduates.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Spurred by a growing agricultural economy, Alamosa County’s largest-ever population boom was beginning just as Billy Adams was founding its first college. The county added 229 farms between 1920 and 1930, and its population grew from 5,148 to 8,602. The growth in farms and population continued despite the <strong>Great Depression</strong> of the 1930s; by 1940 Alamosa County had put an additional 149,000 acres under cultivation and added another 1,882 residents.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Public Lands</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>As the county’s educational and agricultural opportunities grew during the first half of the twentieth century, so too did appreciation for its natural wonders. For instance, the massive sand dunes in the county’s northeastern corner, near the base of the Sangre de Cristos, were part of a National Monument designated by President Herbert Hoover in 1932. The sand dunes are the tallest in North America, piling as high as 750 feet and forming ridges as long as two miles. The dunes were formed approximately 12,000 years ago, as prevailing southwestern winds blew bits of quartz and volcanic rock from the upper Rio Grande westward across the valley, depositing them at the feet of the Sangres. Winds from different directions push the dunes into various shapes and patterns. The area of the dunes, some fifty-seven square miles, was designated a national park in 2001.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Additionally, Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1953 in order to protect the habitat of sandhill cranes and other migratory birds that used the area’s <a href="/article/wetlands-and-riparian-areas"><strong>wetlands</strong></a> as a rest stop on their yearly migration routes. The Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge was created in 1962 for a similar purpose, and encompasses 11,169 acres of wetlands in the Rio Grande floodplain. The refuge provides habitat for migratory aquatic birds, <a href="/article/beaver"><strong>beavers</strong></a>, <strong>coyotes</strong>, <a href="/article/mule-deer"><strong>mule deer</strong></a>, and many other species.</p>&#13; &#13; <h2>Today</h2>&#13; &#13; <p>Today the Alamosa County economy is heavily dependent on agriculture, especially potato production. In 2012 the county had the second-highest acreage of potatoes in the state and twentieth-highest potato acreage in the nation. Other prominent crops include barley and wheat. County ranchers raise more than 2,200 sheep and lambs, ranking sixteenth-highest among the sixty-four Colorado counties. The town of Alamosa remains the transportation center for the valley’s agricultural products.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Tourism is also an important part of the local economy. Between 275,000 and 300,000 tourists visit the Great Sand Dunes National Park each year, and additional public lands—including the Alamosa and Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuges—draw an equal number. The visitation puts about $40.7 million into the regional economy. Alamosa County also features several unique industries in addition to traditional ranching and farming. These include an alligator farm, a mushroom factory, and several solar energy complexes.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>In 1977 Texas residents Erwin and Lynne Young bought an eighty-acre farm in Alamosa, intending to use the area’s geothermal springs to raise tilapia, a warm-water species of food fish. Realizing that the warm waters could support more than just tilapia, in 1987 the couple bought 100 baby alligators to help dispose of fish waste. When the reptiles grew to adulthood, the couple turned the farm into one of Alamosa County’s most popular tourist attractions in 1990. Today, part of the farm’s mission is to educate the public on the dangers of keeping alligators as pets. Alligators are not the only unusual commodity being farmed in Alamosa today.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>During the 1980s the Rakhra Mushroom Farm northeast of Alamosa provided jobs for about 200 Mayan refugees who had come to Alamosa County to escape the destructive Guatemalan Civil War. After twenty-eight years in operation, the farm filed for bankruptcy in 2013. It reopened in September 2014 as the Colorado Mushroom Farm. The farm has since committed to re-hiring all of its former employees, which include well over half of the nearly 400 Mayan Americans in Alamosa County today.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Northern Alamosa County is home to a different commodity, one shared by the entire San Luis Valley: sunlight. The valley receives some of the highest-intensity solar radiation in the country, and that was the main reason why renewable energy company SunEdison built an eighty-two-acre solar-generating station north of Alamosa in 2007. In its first operating year, the station generated enough electricity to power some 1,652 homes. California-based SunPower followed suit in 2010 by building a nineteen-megawatt plant in northern Alamosa County. It added a thirty-megawatt plant in 2011 and opened a third, fifty-megawatt facility in 2015. SunPower’s most recent complex is the county’s largest, capable of powering more than 13,000 homes.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Despite successful agricultural and tourism industries, Alamosa County remains among the poorest in the state. At least 20 percent of the county’s population has lived in poverty since 1980. As of 2014 the county’s rate of childhood poverty—along with several neighboring counties—ranged between 32 and 43 percent, which ranks among the highest in the state. Local efforts to relieve poverty include those by La Puente Home, a Catholic organization founded as a homeless shelter in 1982. The organization has since expanded to provide homelessness prevention services, a network of food banks, programs for children, and other services. To help fund itself, La Puente has established multiple businesses in the county, including Milagros Coffee in Alamosa and Rainbow’s End Thrift Stores in Alamosa and Monte Vista.</p>&#13; </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-author--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-author.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-author.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-author field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-author"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-author">Author</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-author"><a href="/author/encyclopedia-staff" hreflang="und">Encyclopedia Staff</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-keyword--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-keyword.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-keyword.html.twig * field--entity-reference.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-keyword field--type-entity-reference field--label-above" id="id-field-keyword"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-keyword">Keywords</div> <div class='field__items'> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/alamosa-county" hreflang="en">alamosa county</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/alamosa" hreflang="en">alamosa</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/alamosa-county-history" hreflang="en">alamosa county history</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/san-luis-valley" hreflang="en">San Luis Valley</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/solar-power-plant" hreflang="en">solar power plant</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/alligator-farm" hreflang="en">alligator farm</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/rio-grande-river" hreflang="en">rio grande river</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/great-sand-dunes-national-park" hreflang="en">Great Sand Dunes National Park</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/colorado-sand-dunes" hreflang="en">colorado sand dunes</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/blanca-peak" hreflang="en">blanca peak</a></div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-keyword"><a href="/keyword/sangre-de-cristo-mountains" hreflang="en">sangre de cristo mountains</a></div> </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'links__node' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * links--node.html.twig x links--inline.html.twig * links--node.html.twig * links.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/contrib/bootstrap_barrio/templates/navigation/links--inline.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-references-html--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-references-html.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-references-html.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-references-html field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-references-html"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-references-html">References</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-references-html"><p>Adams State University, “<a href="https://www.adams.edu/about/asc_history.pdf">The History of Adams State College</a>,” 2006.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>“Alamosa County,” <em>Colorado County Histories Notebook</em> (Denver: History Colorado, 1989-99).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge, “<a href="http://www.fws.gov/refuge/Alamosa/about_the_refuge.html">About the Refuge</a>,” US Fish and Wildlife Service, updated August 19, 2014.</p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="https://coloradogators.com/">Colorado Gators Reptile Park</a>, n.d.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>John Fielder, “Alamosa,” <em>John Fielder’s Best of Colorado </em>(Englewood, CO: Westcliffe Publishers, 2002–7).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Susan Feldman Foster, “<a href="https://alamosacountycentennial.wordpress.com/about/">Alamosa County: The First 100 Years as Told by the Sacred Mountain of the East</a>,” Alamosa County Centennial blog, November 10–March 12, 2012.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Ruth Heide, “<a href="http://www.alamosanews.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&amp;story_id=26564&amp;page=72">La Puente Celebrates 30 Years of Miracles</a>,” <em>Alamosa Courier</em>, September 25, 2012.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Matt Hildner, “<a href="https://www.chieftain.com/">Mushroom Farm Looks to Rebound</a>,” <em>Pueblo Chieftain</em>, March 20, 2012.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Matt Hildner, “<a href="https://www.chieftain.com/news/region/4281887-120/plant-solar-megawatt-xcel/">New 50-Megawatt Plant Is the Largest Solar Array in San Luis Valley</a>,” <em>The Pueblo Chieftain</em>, December 30, 2015.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Irving A. Lipson et al., <em>Colorado Counties 1963</em> (Colorado State Association of County Commissioners: Denver, 1963).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Nathaniel Minor, “<a href="https://www.cpr.org/news/story/colorados-child-poverty-explained-12-charts-and-maps">Colorado’s Child Poverty, Explained In 12 Charts And Maps</a>,” <em>Colorado Public Radio</em>, March 23, 2015.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>“<a href="http://www.alamosanews.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&amp;story_id=35768&amp;page=72">Mushroom Farm Reopens in Alamosa</a>,” <em>Valley Courier</em>, September 19, 2014.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>National Park Service, “<a href="https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/american_latino_heritage/Trujillo_Homesteads.html">Trujillo Homesteads—Hooper, Colorado</a>,” n.d.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Thomas J. Noel and John Fielder, <em>Colorado 1870–2000 Revisited </em>(Englewood, CO: Westcliffe Publishers, 2001).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Steve Raabe, “Alamosa solar plant’s success helps prove resource,” <em>The Denver Post</em>, December 23, 2008).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>San Luis Valley Development Resources Group, “Summary of Current and Projected Economic Conditions,” 2013 Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Southern Ute Indian Tribe, “<a href="https://www.southernute-nsn.gov/history/">History of the Southern Ute</a>,” n.d.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Department of Agriculture, “<a href="https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2012/Online_Resources/County_Profiles/">2012 Census of Agriculture County Profile: Alamosa County Colorado</a>,” National Agricultural Statistics Service.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Department of Agriculture, “<a href="https://usda.library.cornell.edu/">Colorado-Arizona</a>,” US Census of Agriculture, Vol. 2, Part 3 (1930).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Department of Agriculture, “Colorado,” US Census of Agriculture, Vol. 1, Part 41 (1940).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>US Fish and Wildlife Service. “<a href="http://www.fws.gov/alamosa/Monte%20Vista.html">Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge</a>,” updated February 11, 2016.</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <!-- THEME DEBUG --> <!-- THEME HOOK: 'field' --> <!-- FILE NAME SUGGESTIONS: * field--node--field-additional-information-htm--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--node--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig x field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig * field--field-additional-information-htm.html.twig * field--text-long.html.twig * field.html.twig --> <!-- BEGIN OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> <div class="field field--name-field-additional-information-htm field--type-text-long field--label-above" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"> <div class="field__label" id="id-field-additional-information-htm">Additional Information</div> <div class="field__item" id="id-field-additional-information-htm"><p>Colleen O’Connor, “<a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2012/04/14/alamosa-mushroom-farms-financial-struggles-trickle-down-to-maya-employees/">Alamosa Mushroom Farm’s Financial Struggles Trickle Down to Maya Employees</a>,” <em>Denver Post</em>, April 15, 2012.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Helen Sloan Daniels, <em>The Ute Indians of Southwestern Colorado</em> (Lake City, CO: Western Reflections Publishing , 2008).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Jose de Onis, ed., <em>The Hispanic Contribution to the State of Colorado</em> (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1976).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Paul M. O’Rourke, <em>Frontier in Transition: A History of Southwestern Colorado </em>(Denver, CO: Colorado State Office, Bureau of Land Management, 1992).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Steve Raabe, “<a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2008/12/23/alamosa-solar-plants-success-helps-prove-resources-viability-on-large-scale/">Alamosa Solar Plant’s Success Helps Prove Resource’s Viability on Large Scale</a>,” <em>Denver Post</em>, December 24, 2008.</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Rocky Mountain PBS, <a href="https://video.rmpbs.org/video/2365603249/">"The San Luis Valley,"</a> <em>Colorado Experience</em>, November 12, 2015.</p>&#13; &#13; <p><a href="https://www.museumtrail.org/">San Luis Valley Museum Society</a></p>&#13; &#13; <p>Virginia McConnell Simmons, <em>The San Luis Valley: Land of the Six-Armed Cross </em>(Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 1999).</p>&#13; &#13; <p>Virginia McConnell Simmons, <em>The Ute Indians of Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico </em>(Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2000).</p>&#13; </div> </div> <!-- END OUTPUT from 'themes/custom/encyclopedia/templates/field/field--node--encyclopedia-article.html.twig' --> Fri, 24 Jun 2016 22:36:06 +0000 yongli 1507 at http://coloradoencyclopedia.org