Montezuma County Time Line » About » Montezuma County Democrats

by Fred Blackburn and Margie Connelly

Our hope is that this time line will provide you with a SENSE OF PLACE. as we help to shape Montezuma County. What we may learn here is of 125 years seeking an identity and economy in a fringe area of Colorado.

Our attempt here presents a view of the county through the eyes of time and the people who live through those times.

Ute People
After the ancestral Puebloans left the area, Ute people began to occupy southwestern Colorado. They may well have been in the area before this time. Archaeologists and Anthropologists may yet learn of those links through oral history, language and physical materials. The Ute people believe they have always been here. Ute people are from the Uto-Aztecan language group, which is related to many tribes including the Hopi.

Spanish Exploration
Spanish inquiry and investigation of southwest Colorado began before and likely remained after the Rivera expedition of 1765 (multiple trips are likely) and the Dominquez Escalante Expedition of 1776. Reviewing early maps one so recognizes that place names of southwestern Colorado were in place by Antonio Rivera’s arrival in 1765. Prospectors found further evidence of Spanish discovering the presence of Aztec Mines and Workings found in the vein rich mountains of the San Juan’s, Laplata’s, LaSalle’s, and Ute Mountain (Sierra De Late).

In the early 1800’s the Mancos Times reported a Father Salvero accompanied by a Ute Guide named the Mancos River for injuries received in a fall by Father Salvero. Their route began somewhere in the ramparts following the Mancos River and noting the Cliff Dwellings “Swallows Nests” along the way.

Spanish miners and prospectors held little reason to share their booty with a far away king. They kept few if any records of mining and smelting completed. Undoubtedly they were guided and supported by the Ute people who had a long history of helping trappers and prospectors. One area in Montezuma County stands out as a possible indicator of contact between the Spanish and the Ute Peoples. Henry Mitchell identified a small alcove in McElmo Canyon as having over a foot of goat manure in 1878. Mitchell’s settled that area in the same year yet he knew the Ute tradition of placing goats within the canyon. When was the goat manure placed there? Is this site evidence of early contact between Spanish and Ute peoples? Two Spanish artifacts have been found in McElmo Canyon. A lance point and a nose ring used in the slave trade of the time.

Brief History of the Formation of Colorado
Much of the land now known as Colorado is acquired through the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Additional land came from the Treaty of Quadalupe Hidalgo after the so-called Mexican War of 1848. Early Trappers and traders risked jail when attempting to enter and utilize the resources of Colorado until 1825 when a need for trade with the Americans was foremost in the minds of Hispanics who needed a new source of trade resulting from the severed ties with Spain.

Trappers and Mountain Men
Earliest evidence of trappers in Laplata County is found on an irregular shaped sandstone boulder on the lower Animas River. The inscription reads WHW, MCH, 1818. I believe this to be the camp of an early trapper from Taos named William Wolfskill who is noted as disappearing into Colorado and returning with hides to the Santa Fe region. Politically correct history plays a part of this date. Euro Americans were not welcome in New Spain. Trappers and Mountain men found prior to Mexican Independence were often jailed in Santa Fe or as far away as Casas Grandes in Mexico. Secrecy surrounds the trapping of Beaver and movements by Mountain Men until 1825 when movements involving trade were encouraged by the Mexican people.

A second trapping expedition occurred in 1838 when a group of trappers came over Cinnamon or Engineer passes headed up the Mineral Creek west of the present town of Silverton crossed the divide to Hope Lake following an existing trail to Trout Lake and the upper Dolores River. They left their names carved in a Spruce Tree somewhere near Trout Lake. After 1825 it is highly likely that many such groups made forte’s into the river valleys. The trappers did not wander here by accident. They were Following Mountain Buffalo trails. Ute People would follow the Buffalo into the mountains waiting for them to break the trails through the snow over the high divides when traveling to their summer encampments. These trail systems were well in place when early pioneers followed them into our area.

1849	First Ute Treaty between the Ute People and the United States Government at Abiquie, New Mexico.

Early American Settlement
1861
Baker’s Park east of the present day town of Silverton was target for settlement and Gold mining by developers and entrepreneurs hoping to attract a large settlement into the area in 1860/61. The Gold Rush was a sham but it attracted large numbers of miners into a death trap as the snows reached twenty to thirty feet in depth that winter.

One group of men, Doctors, Lawyers, Merchants and others who could provide an infrastructure to the town followed the northern fork of the Spanish Trail, continued down the West Fork of the Gunnison River turned up the Uncompaghre River finding hot springs. Here they built winter cabins on Coal Creek near Ouray, Colorado. Known as the Doc Arnold party this group could not return the way they had come the following spring due to the deep snowsthey traveled a route that crossed the San Miguel and Dolores Rivers. Eventually encountering the mouth of the Mancos River traveled up that stream and arrived in the Animas Valley just as the remnants of Baker’s Park struggled out of the Animas Canyon. One of these men left his inscription in a ruin within Mancos Canon. T. Stangl 1861. Due to the harsh conditions suffered the prior winter and the outbreak of the Civil War these men returned to Denver. Some stragglers undoubtedly kept prospecting and many returned after the Civil War to help establish our communities.

1862	The Homestead Act of 1862 allowed anyone 21 years of age or head of household to homestead up to 160 acres.
1868	Ute treaty of 1868 creates a Ute reservation, which consists of one third of the state of Colorado.

1872
People were once again moving into the San Juan’s. This time the route would be from southern California and the Mojave Desert. Captain John Moss or one of his men likely completed a reconnaissance in 1872. Realizing that silver not gold would be his goal. Moss led a small group of men out of the Mojave desert crossing at Lee’s Ferry on the Colorado River continuing past the town of Moenave through Marsh Pass and across the Monumental Valley to the San Juan River where they would cross and travel up the Mancos River settling in the upper drainage’s of the La Plata River at a town that would be named Parrot after the banking family who was backing Moss. Moss reached a treaty agreement with the Utes. In addition Moss promised the Ute people a half lamb or beef if they would bring any prospectors or settlers found wandering to his camp. Moss was particularly upset with the Brunot Treaty in 1873 as it destroyed his working relationship with the Ute People.

1873-1880
Montezuma Valley, then known as, “That Dry Valley Over There” acquires it first residents. Peter Shirts from southern Utah, the world’s most dedicated hermit, arrives settling in the Mitchell Springs area. Very much a loner he had little to do or need with the outside world. Shirts left the valley by 1876 seeking an area with fewer people and was found three years later in a bank dugout at Montezuma Creek living off of Humpbacked Chubs and Suckers by the advanced guides of the Hole In The Rock Party. One sheepherder was tending his flock near the mouth of the Mancos River in 1876 as well. Thomas McElmel settled in the derivation of his name McElmo sometime in this era. McElmel was one of the early arrivals with Captain John Moss. Sometime prior to 1876 the valley was named “Shirt Tail Valley” after a cryptic message left stuck to a tree. In 1876 a group of men named it the Montezuma Valley after all the large abandoned Pueblo buildings to be found there.

The Mitchell family settled in the Montezuma Valley at Mitchell Springs on the upper McElmel, as well as establishing a trading post west of the mouth of the Mcelmo and the San Juan River, likely at a location known as Holyoake. Sandy Tozer would move from this location to the McElmo in 1899. They were able to hang on and grow a small settlement as the farms in the lower valley began to take hold. Destruction of natural wildlife was rampant. Miners needed food. Professional Hunters decimated the populations of Deer, Mountain Sheep, Buffalo, and Bear. Wildlife populations dwindled with increasing numbers of miners. A situation enhancing the gap in the need for food. Farmers and ranchers immigrated to meet a need for agricultural products to mountain communities. Farms and ranches suffered predation left without prey species. Legends grew of the surviving predators but by 1900 Grizzly and other predator species would be virtually annihilated from the mountain environments.

Large Cattle Herds developed from Durango to the Blue Mountains. The Carlisle Cattle Company located on the western edge of the Great Sage Plain was the largest.

1873	Ute People cede San Juan Mountains [The Shining Mountains] area by terms found in the Brunot Treaty.
1874	Hayden Survey with Ernest Ingersoll geologist and John Moss as guide take the first photographs of an archaeological site, at Two-Story Ruin in Mancos Canyon.
1875	Hayden Survey returns this time from the west led by W.H. Holmes. Harry Lee, possibly a young cook named Sterl Price Thomas and photographer William Henry Jackson were among the expedition. The publication resulting from these two expeditions serves as a brochure helping develop and settle our area.
	The Miller survey originating out of New Mexico explores and maps the boundary of Colorado, New Mexico and their interrelationship to the reservation lands. Chapman Ballard axeman for the group reportedly views Cliff Palace for the first time.
	Richard Gaines and Carlos Stebbins young men from Durango make a trading expedition down the Mancos River meeting Red Jacket and his family. The expedition met disaster while encountering a group of Navajo men along the San Juan River.
1878	Lewis Henry Morgan, a man who many esteem as the father of anthropology, arrives in the Montezuma Valley. While in the Animas Valley receives the first collection of Pueblo antiquities from General Heffernan. While viewing Ancestral Puebloan sites at Mitchell Springs and in the Montezuma Valley he writes Houses and House life describing communal living. Based upon these writings and theories Karl Marx uses the concept in his manifesto and development of Communism.
1879	Benjamin Kite Wetherill arrives in the Mancos Valley with a brother in law of the Mitchell family who settled here a year earlier. Benjamin weighs his options in the mining camp of Rico and along the San Juan River near Bluff but decides to settle in the Mancos Valley. He writes his son Richard to join him as he missed his family terribly.

1880-1890
This decade proved to be the beginnings of communities, as we know them today. Arrival of the railroad in Durango spawned the town itself splitting from a reluctant sister city, Animas City. Trains schedule in 1890 running to Silverton and soon afterward toward the Dolores River and Telluride where it would join the line to Salt Lake City. Durango rose from the dirt as a direct result of wealth provided by eastern industrialist money derived from the Civil War. Brigham Young, concerned with the increased settlement of southern Utah by gentiles called his people to southern Utah to form a community now known as Bluff. Within the San Luis Valley Mormons suffering terribly from the cold, abandoned the mission. Families from the Valley and Bluff moved towards the Mancos Valleys combining to form a portion of the Mancos Community.

Cortez would be late arriving in development. The first post office , built near Mitchell Springs is named Toltec. Three men would forever influence who we are today. S.W. Carpenter, E.S. Turner and James Hanna. S.J. Smith agent for all of the men would help them in their efforts. Smith would stay in Cortez until final bankruptcy occurred for Turner and Hanna shortly after repeal of the Sherman Silver Act in 1893.

My Opinion on Why Cortez Has Struggled
by Fred Blackburn

Turner, Hanna and Carpenter were gambling on five things to build Cortez:

a. Independent funding from the eastern states.
b. Water from the Dolores River.
c. A train from Albuquerque to Salt Lake City via Gallup New Mexico
d. An agricultural community to feed the mining towns.
e. Secession from Laplata County.

This was a chain; one weak link in the chain would break the entire plan. Turner took on the eastern money. Finding what appears to be reluctant Eastern backing to establish a new community based upon agriculture. Carpenter would lay out the town of Cortez and the irrigation systems. Since his investment was largely in Real Estate, Carpenter would turn out to be one of the few who survived the early investments. Hanna found monies for the Great Cut Dike needed from the Dolores River. Their investments proved costly and the Montezuma Valley Water Company underwent numerous bankruptcies and buy outs. Hanna and Turner lobbied heavily for a railroad from Albuquerque to Salt Lake providing Cortez with the needed transportation to compete with other railroad communities.

Hanna and Turner were sensitive to Public Relations advertising and selling the area to those who would come and settle. The plan fell apart when the railroad failed to materialize. The collapse of the Silver Standard and declines on Wall Streets finished their initial hard work in the community. By 1900 all initial developers with the exception of Carpenter were gone and bankrupt. In 1898 a mysterious fire broke out on Main Street, some believe the twelve buildings damaged or burned were a victim of arson.

Secession from Laplata County combined with a railroad would secure Cortez as a railroad town where commerce could compete with Durango, and the Grand Valley. This gamble could have made the men wealthy. A hard fought political battle for secession from Laplata County left many scars. State and Federal connections by Hanna swayed the vote. Montezuma County is carved from the previous Laplata County. By 1889 Cortez was a community and Montezuma a county. Leaders of Durango and LaPlata County never really forgave this breaking away. A rivalry exists yet today, though not understood deriving from a historical past, is best manifested at Cortez versus Durango league games. Had these men achieved their goal of a railroad our community would be much stronger today. Rather they fathered what would become the first cycle of boom and bust.

This decade was a prime time for Outlaws and Rustlers. Many of who hid in the canyons West of Cortez. The Hole in the Wall Gang possibly having family and connection in the Montezuma Valley. Matt Warner claims Butch Cassidy returned from Mexico and lived in the Montezuma Valley. Oral tradition has it that Tom Horn may have come to help with the rustling. A prominent O.H. Horn 1881 inscription found deeply incised on a canyon wall in McElmo Canyon provides suspicious credence to his arrival.

1880	Ute agreement signed; reservations are established.
1881	Durango instigates a daily newspaper.
1882	First visit by the Wetherill family to a Cliff House. Sandal House.
1884	Discovery and excavation of Balcony House by S.E. Osborn, William Henry Hayes and George W. Jones.
1885	Al Wetherill glimpses Cliff Palace.
1886	Toltec Post Office established at Mitchell Springs.
	Cortez establishes the Montezuma Journal. . E.H. Cooper claims discovery of Mesa Verde dwellings.
	Mr. Mack and Mr. Goodygoontz begin the town of Cortes.
1888	Richard Wetherill, Charlie Mason and very likely the Ute leader Acowitz rediscover Cliff Palace.
1889	First official guided visitor to Cliff Palace signs the Alamo Ranch ledger. Ben Ritter from Durango. Ben would assist Gustaf Nordenskiold’s effort in Mesa Verde National Park.
	Goodman Point archaeological is set aside. This is the second prehistoric site to be preserved in America. The first site chosen was Casa Grande outside of Phoenix, Arizona. The reason for the set aside is unclear. Why was Goodman Point preserved? Possibly to preserved the permanent springs located at the Pueblo.

1890-1918
The majority of dryland farming areas west of Cortez attract homesteaders between 1911 and 1925. Small self-sufficient family farms dominate the landscape. One-room schoolhouses are established and become the social centers for agricultural communities such as Lewis, Lebanon , Ackmen and Sylvan.

A time of hardship, migration, severe economies and war. 1893 saw the destruction of the Silver Standard. Mines closed men were out of work, the community suffered. Those on the self-sufficient farms were able to cope, but excess spending money did not exist. A severe draught in 1897 saw the Carlisle Cattle Company move their Long Horn cattle back to Texas. Rumor has it that three days were required to drive the herd through Mancos. The range was gone, drought and overgrazing destroyed much of the landscape. Resulting erosion deepened the McElmo and other arroyo systems where before they had been shallow, wide and easy to cross. Many surviving servicemen of World War One, especially airmen, took advantage of the 160-acre plots available to them after mustering out of the armed services. Their small pieces of ground ranged across the Great Sage Plain, but few would survive the hard times, most were gone by 1930.

1890	Frederick Chapin arrives at the Alamo Ranch.
1891	Gustaf Nordenskiold signs the guest register at the Alamo Ranch.
	Charles McLoyd and C.C. Graham excavate in the Basketmaker Caves of southeastern Utah.
1892	Frederick Chapin publishes “In the Land of the Cliff Dwellers.” A first look at the story of Mesa Verde.
1893	Price of Silver Plummets. Mines Close
	Gold is found along the San Juan River by a trader named Williams. Williams founded a small camp along the river named Gable basing his operations from the Arizona side of the river. He promoted a gold rush along the San Juan River, hundreds of men raced to disappointment. According to the Telluride Journal “Camp Sucker” is born.
	Richard Wetherill identifies the Basketmaker Culture in southeastern Utah.
	World’s Columbian Exposition opens in Chicago.
	Durango Archaeological and Historical Society is formed in Durango, Colorado to prevent artifacts from leaving southwest Colorado.
1894	Richard Wetherill excavates and discovers Kiet Seel in Navajo National Monument.
1896	Virginia Donaghue forms the Cliff Dwellers Association to protect the Ruins of the Mesa Verde. Negotiates a lease with the Chief Ignacio.
	Indian agency established at Navajo Springs. Edgar Noland builds a trading post with the help of Al Wetherill.
1898	Exposition arrives at Mesa Verde for his first visit to the Cliff Dwelling accompanied by Fred Hyde.
1906	Congress passes the bills making Mesa Verde a national park.
	Congress passes the first act, Antiquities Act, for the specific purpose of protecting artifacts.
	The Cliff Dwellers organization is narrowly thwarted in their removal of cliff dwellings found in Mesa Verde to Manitou Springs. Sites in upper Hartman draw are stripped of their stone. Many collections are bought. Boxcar loads of stone are loaded on the railhead at Dolores then shipped to Colorado Springs. A mimic of parts of buildings such as Cliff Palace, Balcony House.

1918-1940
The great depression proved a tremendous hardship to struggling families and businesses. Many families moved from Panhandle states to settle on remaining acreages in the Sagebrush Plain. Mines closed, poor growing conditions, and mandatory stock reduction would forever forge the hardships that show in our community today. Dust bowl era survivors learned how to grow marginal crops under dry land conditions and grew even more self sufficient. Their tenacity on small acreage’s and extended families aided survival. Cortez grew little during this era. The Civilian Conservation Corp established camps on Mesa Verde, Dolores and in Cortez.

1924	The town of McPhee is established five miles west of Dolores to cut lumber from the Montezuma National Forest.
1930	Galloping Goose replaces the regular train route hauls a limited number of passengers and freight on the Rio Grande Southern Route.
1933	The New Deal establishes CCC camps.

1940-1970
For Montezuma County a period of economic growth sustained by oil and gas fields of the Aneth Oil Field. Uranium supplied additional economy. Mines in Ouray, Rico, Telluride, and Silverton slowed to a close at the finish of World War II. Mining families left for larger towns and better jobs. Much of the infrastructure of Cortez is built during this era. Project 60’s saw the excavation of Wetherill Mesa and an extensive archaeological project to expand the needs of visitors on Mesa Verde. Route 66 is completed and a paved southern route from Kansas City to Los Angelos is completed.

1953	Last freight train into Telluride

1970-2000
The Dolores Project attracted construction workers, engineers and archaeologists from all over the country to the Montezuma Valley. Archaeologists found work in private archaeological firms, Mesa Verde National Park and Crow Canyon Archaeological Center. Uranium ended, Oil and gas field development slowed and is depleted. High concentrations of sulfur in some of the oil make them unprofitable at the refinery. Carbon Dioxide is pursued on the McElmo Dome then shipped to aid secondary recovery in depleting oil fields. Through this period Montezuma County began to lose its rural feel due to the sale of family farms and ranches. Large farms and ranches were subdivided, other ranchers chose to sell out with high land prices then buy in Nebraska and eastern Colorado. Unprecedented gains in the stock market, due to the booming computer industry, enabled new people to move into this area. Those directly involved and with an interest in archaeological settlement provide the latest change in cultural dynamics of Montezuma County. Influence of Crow Canyon Archaeological Center upon community change should not be underestimated.

2000-
Where do we go from here? The answer is at our feet. The ground that we stand on is our best economic resource. How wisely we use that resource and how we develop our sense of place will determine not only our quality of life but our economic future. How we choose to change minimum wage job structures, educational opportunities, continued development as a community supporting projects that aid our community mental and physical health are key factors, but our choices for the use of the landscape are more important. As councilman Jimmy Herrick so aptly stated. “How Many Times Do You Need To Dress Up Your Pig?” How we approach zoning and quality of life will determine who is attracted to our community. Leadership where all can win is difficult but very plausible as we approach a new era if there is an agreed upon Sense of Place.