Photo courtesy John M. Motter
This is the oldest known photo of the Pagosa Hot Spring. The view is looking south across what are probably the oldest buildings in town. The little log cabin on the left may have served as the first school building, with Fil Byrnes as the first teacher.

Orders were issued by the Army in 1880 to move newly built Fort Lewis from Pagosa Springs to Hesperus on the La Plata River.

In a May press release, Sherman said: “General Sheridan and I have fully discussed the situation of affairs in Ute Country … There are three bodies of men bearing on the country … First, Colonel McKenzie of Fort Garland with about 650 men … second Lieutenant Colonel Gilbert, Seventh Infantry, with about the same number of men at the White River Agency … Third, a force of about 300 men, mostly under Colonel Buell at Pagosa Springs … We propose to give up Pagosa Springs, as already occupied by settlers.”

Photo courtesy John M. Motter
Keeping the railroad pass open across Cumbres during the heavy snowfall of winter has always been a challenge, as attested by this photo of coupled engines fighting to clear the track near the summit of the South San Juans.

In November 1880, the La Plata Miner editor gave readers an account of the southern route between Silverton and the end of the approaching narrow gauge railroad, then nearing the top of Cumbres Pass from the east side.

The editor’s trip was made from Animas City to the railhead with a freight team “in order that those who may desire to follow after us may know what they have to go through.” A party of eight hired the freight team for a total cost of $64 for five days — time to make the trip. Here are the writer’s own words describing the trip.

The full version of this story is available in the print edition and e-edition of the Pagosa Springs SUN. Subscribe today by calling (970)264-2100 or click here.

By April Holthaus
Special to The PREVIEW

Recently, one of the Archuleta County Genealogical Society’s club members has been tracing an interesting tidbit in her mother’s life story and discovered more information about a long-forgotten train trip.

Her mother was living in Colombia, South America, at the time and decided she wanted to see an emerald mine. So she got on a train and went a long distance out into the dangerous countryside, without much planning or hotel reservations. The story was a bit scary and not thought out at all, but she saw an emerald mine.

This tale, though incomplete here, is an example of how tracing family genealogy can bring snippets of your personal history to life. The ACGS, begun in 1978, has brought encouraging camaraderie to its members as they’ve solved puzzles of their family history.

The best place to begin researching is with the person you know best — yourself. Then go and ask your parents for information, then your aunts and uncles. When you find yourself remembering anything, even a tiny incident about anything or anyone in your family, write it down.

When all personal sources are exhausted, there is still a wealth of information to sift through at libraries and courthouses. Ancestors can also show up in tax lists, voter registrations, marriage and divorce records, jury lists and interdiction papers.

The foremost resource center for genealogical research is the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. There are millions of names and histories to access there. Most can be searched on your computer at with geneology websites. This is an excellent way to begin your research and there are many reasons for wanting to delve into the past. Many genealogists have cleared up ambiguous facts, traced genetically linked medical problems or helped explain their current situation. It helps you understand why you are as you are.

By collecting and organizing stories, names and places, genealogists paint portraits of bygone days for future generations. Your ancestors lived and loved, had problems and joys and difficulties just as we do today. Future generations won’t have any idea about how it really was for your ancestors or for us unless we help them understand by giving them our family stories.

Interest in genealogy in our country comes and goes. In the 1920s, genealogy was important. Then we had a depression and a war and families began moving and genealogy ebbed. Then, along came Alex Haley’s “Roots.” He gave us that spark again and made us want to look back. Today, genealogy is one of the highest-ranked hobbies, with TV shows like “Who Do You Think You Are” helping pique our interest.

ACGS encourages beginning genealogists to broaden their scope searching for what kinds of materials are available for research. There is also contact with others who are farther along in their findings and may be working on the same family line, or in the same state. Sometimes there are big surprises. Sometimes there are shocks and sometimes there are answers to questions in people’s backgrounds that have been gnawing at them for years.

On Saturday, Feb. 7, the meeting of ACGS will be held at the Methodist church on Lewis Street at 11 a.m.

Our speaker, Jeannine Dobbins, will speak on the interesting topic of “the History of Genealogy,” going back to the early days of knighthood and family clans.

All are welcome — come with your questions, meet our members, have a cup of coffee and see if we can help you get started down this exciting road of solving puzzles of family.

Photo courtesy John M. Motter
The Rosebud Saloon was on the south side of San Juan Street east of the river. It was one of many bars in 1880 Pagosa Springs when Fort Lewis and its cadre of cavalry and foot soldiers occupied the main part of town west of the river.

We’ve been quoting a November 1880 description of a wagon trip from Animas City to the railhead at Chama. We stopped last week with the traveler spending the night at Stollsteimer’s ranch a few miles west of Pagosa Springs. (Motter: The location currently known as Dyke). We resume today with the traveler’s morning departure from Stollsteimer’s.

Photo courtesy John M. Motter
Stage coach travelers could sleep and eat at Ma Cade’s San Juan Hotel during the 1880s. Other hotels and eating establishments were available as well. I’m not sure if modern travelers would consider them comfortable, and the existence nearby of several bars and their usual rowdiness probably didn’t make for restful sleep.

We have been repeating an 1880 first-person description of a wagon ride from Animas City through Pagosa Springs and on to Chama. With today’s column, we conclude the description with an eye-witness 1880 view of Chama.

“We reached Chama at 6 p.m. and here the great crowd of railroad people monopolizes the accommodation which there is for man and stock and it is difficult to get an accommodation. The writer accidentally fell in with Mr. Mason, an old timer in the San Juan country and through the kindness characteristic of those who were early at the door of the now celebrated San Juan, he furnished us a good bed, and at his brother-in-laws, Mr. W. Cowleys, we obtained supper and breakfast.

The full version of this story is available in the print edition and e-edition of the Pagosa Springs SUN. Subscribe today by calling (970)264-2100 or click here.

Photo courtesy John M. Motter
This photo, circa 1885, shows old Fort Lewis on the left and Pagosa Springs on the right. In the center is a bridge across the San Juan River built in 1881 to connect the town on the east with the road on the west, which ran to Durango.

By January of 1881, two stage coach lines were running daily between the end of the Denver & Rio Grande narrow gauge railroad and Durango. The railroad was building westward and soon would reach Durango, but in early 1881 it had only reached Cumbres Pass east of Chama. Travelers and supplies unloaded at the end of the railroad and transferred to the stage coaches running through Pagosa Springs to Durango. As the railroad moved west, so did the transfer point.

Photo courtesy John M. Motter
This bar is typical of many located in Pagosa Springs during the early days. In those times, the town budget was mostly supported by money paid to the town in exchange for liquor licenses.

We’ve been writing about the Wild West days of Pagosa’s history, circa 1881. Everything you ever saw in western movies was really happening in Pagosa Country, including shootouts in bars, stage holdups, and, yes, even an outlaw gang.

A self-styled gang of desperados headed by Charley Allison set up tents on the outskirts of Amargo and proceeded to terrorize the countryside.

The full version of this story is available in the print edition and e-edition of the Pagosa Springs SUN. Subscribe today by calling (970)264-2100 or click here.

By Shannon Haltiwanger
Special to The PREVIEW

History Colorado invites families who have owned and operated their Colorado farm or ranch for 100 years or more to nominate their property for the 2015 Colorado Centennial Farms Award. Farms and ranches that qualify will be honored at the 29th annual Centennial Farms celebration at the Colorado State Fair in Pueblo in August 2015.

Farmers and ranchers nominating their property for this award must submit an application providing information about the history of their farm and its buildings by close of business on Thursday, April 30.

The full version of this story is available in the print edition and e-edition of the Pagosa Springs SUN. Subscribe today by calling (970)264-2100 or click here.

Photo courtesy John M. Motter
Eudolphus M. Taylor was a community leader during Pagosa Country’s early days. He served as county clerk and town clerk for many years, and at the same time. Here he is showing off his high-dollar Hameltonian trotting horse.

“Another Stage Robbery.”

So the Silverton newspaper reported in May of 1881. According to the story which followed the headline, the Allison gang held up the eastbound stage 4 miles west of Pagosa Springs in a rocky canyon. There were 10 passengers on the coach, from whom the robbers took about $500, plus a number of gold watches, other jewelry and a draft for $3,300.

After the holdup, the robbers walked into Mr. Voorhees’s store on San Juan Street in Pagosa Springs. Among those present were Harry Sanderson and John Fosbay, the division superintendent of the Barlow & Sanderson stage line. Although they had money and valuables on their persons, they were not molested. At the mouth of a pistol, Mr. Voorhees opened his safe and handed over the contents to the robbers — about $450.

The full version of this story is available in the print edition and e-edition of the Pagosa Springs SUN. Subscribe today by calling (970)264-2100 or click here.

Photo courtesy John M. Motter
The first bath house built at Pagosa Springs, by Thomas Blair, was not particularly elegant to look at, as pictured here, but it was a step forward.

Thomas Blair opened the first public bath house near the great Pagosa Hot Spring in May of 1881. It contained “one large plunge fully four and one-half feet deep, and several single bath tubs, fully sufficient to accommodate all visitors. This fine bath house is run in connection with the Hamilton House, the gentlemanly proprietors of which will do all in their power for the accommodation of the traveling public.”

Photo courtesy John M. Motter
During Pagosa Country’s pioneer days, freight was delivered in wagons crossing Elwood Pass at the headwaters of the East Fork of the San Juan River. Three of those wagons on the pass are shown in this photo. The state of Colorado abandoned that route after the flood of 1911 wiped out much of the road.

When Pagosa Springs started in 1877/1878, the first settlers based their economic hopes on the expectations of being home to Fort Lewis and the Southern Ute Reservation, nearby gold, silver and copper mines, through railroad service, and, of course, tourism based on health-seeker patronage of “the world’s largest and hottest mineral springs.”

By 1880, those settlers knew there would be no fort or Ute Reservation headquarters and no through railroad. So far, no significant nearby gold, silver or copper ores had been discovered. Because the railroad to Durango bypassed Pagosa Springs some 40 miles to the south in New Mexico territory, visiting the hot springs meant a bumpy, 40-mile stage coach ride — not an enticing prospect for invalids planning to dip in the “healing waters.”

The full version of this story is available in the print edition and e-edition of the Pagosa Springs SUN. Subscribe today by calling (970)264-2100 or click here.

Photo courtesy John M. Motter
This early Pagosa Springs post office was located in a frame building still standing on the south side of San Juan Street, just across the alley from the Spa Motel. The man in the photo is Billy Kern, a Pagosa pioneer who built the house.

Ownership of the Pagosa Hot Spring passed from the U.S. government to private owners in 1883.

In that year, Henry Foote, an investor living in Del Norte, was awarded title to the 40 acres of land surrounding the great Pagosa Hot Spring. The title was issued by the United States, which had retained ownership of the Hot Springs, even as the land surrounding the hot springs was surveyed and set aside for the construction and operation of Fort Lewis. Another 40-acre plot immediately south of Foote’s 40 acres was sold by the government to J.L. Byers, John Conover and A.C. Van Duyn. Later that same year, the latter three bought out Foote and incorporated the Pagosa Springs Company.

The full version of this story is available in the print edition and e-edition of the Pagosa Springs SUN. Subscribe today by calling (970)264-2100 or click here.

By James Dickhoff
Special to The SUN

The Town Historic Preservation Board is presenting a journey through the eight-episode film series “The West,” a Ken Burns documentary, on Tuesday evenings between April 7 and May 27.

On Tuesday, April 7, the first episode, “The People,” will be shown at the historic Liberty Theatre, located at 418 Pagosa St., at 5 p.m. The eight-part film series is free with your $5 donation and includes a small popcorn and soda.

The first episode, “The People,” reviews the period of time prior to 1806, when the west transforms from the whole world to the people who lived here into a New World when the Europeans arrive, a world shaken by incompatible visions. Three centuries later, when Lewis and Clark ventured west to find a Northwest Passage, this world becomes the testing-ground for a young nation’s continent-spanning dream.

The remaining documentary film episodes include the following show times:

• “Empire Upon the Trails” (1806-1848) — April 14 at 6:30 p.m.

• “Speck the Future” (1848-1859) — April 21 at 5 p.m.

• “Death Runs Riot” (1856-1868) — April 28 at 6:30 p.m.

• “The Grandest Enterprise Under God” (1868-1874) — May 5 at 5 p.m.

• “Fight No More Forever” (1874-1877) — May 12 at 6:30 p.m.

• “The Geography of Hope” (1877-1887) — May 19 at 5 p.m.

• “One Sky Above Us” (1887-1914) — May 26 at 6:30 p.m.

The Historic Preservation Board is planning a gathering after all eight episodes have been shown, with the exact day and time to be announced.

The film series is presented as a prelude to the month of May, the national, state and local Historic Preservation Month. A number of events activities are planned.

Mark your calendars and please join us for this nationally acclaimed documentary series.

Photo courtesy John M. Motter
This 1894 photo looking in a southwesterly direction across Pagosa Springs shows the four officers’ barracks from Fort Lewis in the foreground. The barracks are on the north side of 4th Street. Two of these buildings were dismantled, the parts numbered, and reassembled as one building on what is today the R.D. Hott Ranch, where the reassembled building still stands.

A brand-blotting case or “rustling” or “grand larceny” was the big news in 1884. The Hoover Bros. accused the Brown Bros. of the cattle-stealing crime and produced nine cattle at the trial to prove their claim.

Old-timers told me when I first moved to Pagosa Springs circa 1970 that cattle rustling was an all-too-common method to build a herd and place a cattle ranch on solid financial footing. They even named names and told stories about the early cattle rustlers. I’m not going to repeat the names because descendants of some of those families still live in the county.

The full version of this story is available in the print edition and e-edition of the Pagosa Springs SUN. Subscribe today by calling (970)264-2100 or click here.

By Margaret Gallegos
Special to The SUN

The Pagosa Springs Historic Preservation Board invites you to join the community as we continue the journey into the 19th century. On Tuesday, April 14, “The Empire Upon the Trails” will be shown at 6:30 p.m. in the historic Liberty Theatre, located at 418 Pagosa St.

“The West” documentary began with “The People” — a new world when the Europeans arrive, a world shaken by incompatible visions.

Photo courtesy John M. Motter
Jud Hallett was one of three men appointed by the state of Colorado as an Archuleta County commissioner when the county was created in 1885. The first election of county commissioners was conducted the following year.

The land which was to become Archuleta County had been part of Conejos County since the territory of Colorado was formed in 1861. Prior to the formation of the county in 1885, Pagosa Country residents had to travel to the town of Conejos, the Conejos county seat, to transact county legal business.

The trip to Conejos from Pagosa Springs was long and arduous, especially when winter snow buried the southern San Juan Mountains, which separated the two cities. Some relief was obtained later when the Durango Land Office opened in 1884 and homesteads could be filed there.

After a rather hotly contested political fight, newly created Archuleta County was named in honor of Jose Manual Archuleta, then a representative of Conejos County in the Colorado legislature. Archuleta sponsored the legislation creating Archuleta County April 14, 1885.

The full version of this story is available in the print edition and e-edition of the Pagosa Springs SUN. Subscribe today by calling (970)264-2100 or click here.

By Margaret Gallegos
Special to The PREVIEW

“A frenzy seized my soul … piles of gold rose up before me … castles of marble … In short, I had a very violent attack of the gold fever.” — Hubert Howe Bancroft.

In 1848, the Gold Rush to California brings the whole world to the west, as 49ers from Asia, South America and the eastern states scramble for a share of the rocks, littering the hills with mining towns and creating the West’s first metropolis. But in the push to strike it rich, many are violently pushed aside.

The full version of this story is available in the print edition and e-edition of the Pagosa Springs SUN. Subscribe today by calling (970)264-2100 or click here.

Photo courtesy John M. Motter
This circa 1886 photo of Pagosa Springs probably shows the building owned by W.S. Peabody that remained in the middle of San Juan Street just to the right of the bridge in the center of the photo. Fort Lewis is on the left side of the bridge, the town on the right side.

We’ve been writing about the first county road system created after the county was formed in 1885. Road locations are historically important because where the roads were, that’s where the people were.

We continue from last week.

Adopted into the county road system were the following roads: the old military road running up Spring Valley to Tierra Amarilla, the Alamosa-Pagosa Toll Road, the Durango road and the Pagosa Springs-Amargo road.

Bridges were built over the major streams and road overseers appointed. D.W. Scott was road overseer for the southeastern part of the county, and Mason Farrow in the western part. Roads were supported by a road tax. A man could contribute labor for road maintenance in lieu of paying the tax.

The full version of this story is available in the print edition and e-edition of the Pagosa Springs SUN. Subscribe today by calling (970)264-2100 or click here.

By Margaret Gallegos
Special to The PREVIEW

The town’s Historic Preservation Board (HPB) is hosting the annual Historic Preservation Month youth artwork poster contest.

The HPB encourages all Pagosa Springs students — public, private and home-schooled — to enter artwork with the theme “History in the Making: Celebrating Youth in Preservation,” defined as “What do our youth see in Pagosa Springs that is worth preserving?”

Artwork submissions will be judged in three categories: high school, junior high/middle school, and elementary and younger. Prizes of $50 will be awarded to first place in each category, with additional prizes awarded for second- and third-place winners in each category.

All entries should address the “What do our youth see in Pagosa Springs that is worth preserving?” theme, through original artwork using any artwork media, including photography, and should be submitted on a 8.5-by-11 sized poster.

Submit your artwork to the Planning and Building Department in Town Hall, located at 551 Hot Springs Blvd., by 5 p.m. Friday, May 1.

Please do not sign your artwork; however, provide your name, school grade, phone number and mailing address on a separate piece of paper so that the Historic Preservation Board can conduct an anonymous judging. Your artwork will be coded when submitted so that your contact information can be accessed after the judging.

The Pagosa Springs Historic Preservation Month artwork poster contest celebrates our shared cultural history and heritage and winning artwork will be published and displayed.

If you have questions, please contact the Town Planning Department at 264-4151, ext. 224. Winners will be announced on May 8. All entries will be displayed during Historic Preservation Month (May) in Town Hall. After the Historic Preservation Month, entries will be available to pick up at Town Hall.

Photo courtesy John M. Motter
The man at the controls of the threshing machine is Ethereal Thomas (ET) Walker. He is said to have led the group of armed men who broke up the first meeting of elected county commissioners January of 1886.

When Archuleta County was organized in 1885, the first county officers were appointed by Gov. Benjamin Harrison Eaton. In 1886, an election was held for the first elected county officers. The election kicked off several years of intense confrontation between Anglos and Hispanics for political control of the county.

C.D. Scase, J.P. Archuleta and J.B. Martinez were elected in the 1886 election. They were scheduled to be installed in office during January of 1887. Archuleta and Martinez were members of a fairly wealthy, well-educated and powerful Hispanic group who controlled the vote of fellow Hispanics in the county. Scase was Anglo, but had a Hispanic wife.

In any case, the newly elected commissioners met on Jan. 3, 1887, to be sworn into office according to Colorado law. That first meeting triggered the following article in the Del Norte Prospector. Pagosa Springs had no newspaper at the time.

The full version of this story is available in the print edition and e-edition of the Pagosa Springs SUN. Subscribe today by calling (970)264-2100 or click here.