History
Cameron Mine
The Cameron Mine was opened prior to the incorporation of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company under the Colorado Coal and Iron Company. It was named after James Cameron, a [...]
Spanish Peaks Country Heritage
Prior to the Europeans arrival, Spanish Peaks Country served as a crossroads for the native people of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. Taos Pueblo in New Mexico was a [...]
Legendary Trails of Southern Colorado
The Pueblo and Taos Indians The Pueblo Indians of Taos in the 1300s had a well-established system of hunting and trading trails in southern Colorado. Long before Coronado’s men “discovered” [...]
The Trujillo Homesteads
The Trujillo Homesteads, settled in the 1860s and 1870s by Teofilo Trujillo and his son, Pedro, are located in Alamosa County along the western boundary of the Great Sand Dunes [...]
The Taos Mountain Trail
Part of the noted Taos or Trapper's Trail leading from Bent's Fort to Taos ascended the Huerfano River from the Arkansas River to the old community of Badito, branched southwest [...]
Tom Sharp
Tom Sharp was born in Hannibal Missouri, the same birthplace as and within a few years of Mark Twain and the “Unsinkable” Molly Brown. Tom Sharp served the Confederacy during [...]
Historical Characters of Spanish Peaks Country
Francis X. Aubry Francis X. Aubry Also known as “The Telegraph,” Francis X. Aubry pioneered the “Aubry Cutoff” on the Santa Fe Trail. From a point on the Arkansas River, [...]
Zebulon Pike and the Search for the Source of the Red River
The United States acquired the Louisiana territory in 1803, and soon afterward, Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark on the famous mission to explore the northern part of the purchase. [...]
Kit Carson
Kit Carson grew up on the Missouri border, watching his older brothers, one-by-one, disappear up the Missouri River or over the Santa Fe Trail. After his father died in a [...]
Juan Bautista de Anza & Cuerno Verde
Cuerno Verde: Spain's Don Juan de Oñate founded New Mexico on behalf of his home country in 1598. This new frontier expanded for hundreds, if not thousands of miles in [...]
The Bent, St. Vrain & Company
The Bent, St. Vrain & Company was formed in 1830 by William and Charles Bent, sons of a wealthy and influential St. Louis judge, and Ceran St. Vrain, a Taos [...]
Libre: Spanish Peaks Country’s Counter-Culture Artist Commune
In the mid-1960s, a group of college-aged artists purchased a six-acre plot outside of Trinidad and built livable domes out of railroad ties and discarded lumber. They, along with other [...]
La Veta
La Veta sits on the eastern side of La Veta Pass through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and at the northern opening of the Cuchara River Valley. A busy trading [...]
Walsenburg
Walsenburg, Huerfano Country’s county seat, sits in the heart of Spanish Peaks Country. With I-25, Highway 160, and Highway 10 meeting in Walsenburg, this quaint, Southern Colorado gem is a [...]
Huerfano County Historical Society
Take a deep dive into Huerfano County’s history with the Huerfano County Historical Society. This organization collects archival photos, newspapers, and Huerfano County records from the 1890s to the present. [...]
A People’s History of the Spanish Peaks
The Spanish Peaks of Southern Colorado have been among the most important landmarks of the southwestern United States, guiding Native American tribes, Spanish and French trappers, gold seekers, hunters, and [...]
Uptop Historic District
In 1877, The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad crossed the Rocky Mountains for the first time over La Veta Pass in Huerfano County. Aptly named “Railroad Above the Clouds,” this [...]
Gardner
Gardner is a small community halfway between the Wet Mountains and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in upper Huerfano County. Historically, the area was crisscrossed by Ute, Comanche, and Apache [...]