Mosca Pass Toll Station
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People and the Dunes:
an Enduring Connection
Human Beings have known about, visited, or lived near the
Great Sand Dunes for a long, long time. The oldest evidence of humans
in the area dates back about 11,000 years.
Making a Living: Early People of 11,000 years ago
Some of the first people to enter the San Luis Valley and the Great Sand
Dunes were nomadic hunters and gatherers whose connection to the area
centered around the herds of mammoths and prehistoric bison that grazed
nearby. They were Stone Age people who hunted with large stone spear or
dart points now identified as Clovis and Folsom points. Like nearly everyone
else until about 400 years ago, they walked into the San Luis Valley,
apparently spending time here when hunting and plant gathering was good,
and avoiding the region during times of drought and scarcity.
A Living Connection: Modern American Indians
Although we don't know the names or the languages of those earliest people,
modern American Indian tribes were familiar with the area when Spaniards
first arrived about 400 years ago. The traditional Ute word for the Great
Sand Dunes is sowapophe-uvehe, "The land that moves back and
forth." Jicarilla Apaches settled in northern New Mexico and called
the Dunes ei-anyedi, "it goes up and down," Blanca Peak,
just southeast of the Dunes, is one of the four sacred mountains of the
Navajo. What was-and is-the connection for these people?
For the Jicarilla Apache and southern Ute tribes, it is a practical matter:
they camped and hunted in the San Luis Valley. While they were here at
the Dunes, they collected the inner layers of bark from ponderosa pine
trees, useful to them as food and medicine. For the people from Tewa/Tiwa-speaking
pueblos along the Rio Grande, it is a spiritual link. They remember a
traditional site of great importance located in the San Luis Valley near
the Dunes: the lake through which their people emerged into the present
world.
"This was one of the places that the Utes used to gather…the
Capulta band were the ones that used to camp in this area. Neighboring
families would come here and camp with them—this was maybe early
in the spring or late in the fall. The Utes used to use the bark from
the ponderosa pine for medicinal purposes, and also for food sources…they
would cut the bottom, pulling it apart. That's the way they harvested.
The younger kids would help, to a certain age, but basically it was
all the women that did the harvesting of the trees, and they're the
ones that picked the trees out…"
Alden Narango, Southern Ute tribal historian
Spanish Explorations:
Don Diego de Vargas, 1694
Juan Bautista de Anza, 1776
In 1694, Don Diego de Vargas became the first European known to have
entered the San Luis Valley, although herders and hunters from the Spanish
colonies in present-day northern New Mexico probably entered the Valley
as early as 1598. De Bargas and his men saw and hunted a herd of 500 bison,
apparently in the southern part of the Valley, before returning to Santa
Fe.
In 1776, Juan Bautista de Anza and a huge entourage of men and livestock
probably passed near the Dunes as they returned from a punitive raid against
a group of Comanches. At this time, the San Luis Valley was a travel route
between the High Plains and Santa Fe for Comanches, Utes, and Spanish
soldiers. For some of them, the Dunes were likely a visible landmark along
the trail.
Westward Expansion:
Zebulon Pike, 1807
The first known writings about the Dunes appear in Zebulon Pike's journals
of 1807. As Lewis and Clark's expedition was returning east, U.S. Army
Lt. Pike was commissioned to explore as far west as the Arkansas and Red
Rivers. By the end of November 1806, Pike and his men had reached the
site of today's Pueblo, Colorado. Still pushing southwest, and confused
about the location of the Arkansas River, Pike crossed the Sangre de Cristo
Mountains just above the Great Sand Dunes. His journal from January 28th,
1807, reads:
"After marching some miles, we discovered…at the foot of
the White Mountains [today's Sangre de Cristos] which we were then descending,
sandy hills…When we encamped, I ascended one of the largest hills
of sand, and with my glass could discover a large river [the Rio Grande]…The
Sand-hills extended up and down the foot of the White Mountains about
15 miles, and appeared to be about 5 miles in width. Their appearance
was exactly that of a sea in storm, except as to color, not the least
sign of vegetation existing thereon."
John C. Fremont, 1848
John Gunnison, 1853
1n 1848, John C. Freemont was hired to find a railroad route from St.
Louis to California. He crossed the Sangre de Cristos in the San Luis
Valley in winter, courting disaster but proving that a winter crossing
of this range was possible. He was followed in 1853 by Captain John Gunnison
of the U.S. Topographical Survey. Gunnison's party crossed the dunefield
on horseback: "Touring the southern base of the sand-hills, over
the lowest of which we rode for a short distance, our horses half burying
their hoofs only on the windward slopes, but sinking to their knees on
the opposite, we for some distance followed the bed of the stream from
the pass, now sunk in the sand, and then struck off across the sandy plain…The
sand was so heavy that we were six hours and a half making ten miles…"
Routes into the Valley
In the years that followed, the Rockies were gradually explored, treaties
were signed and broken with resident tribes, and people with widely differing
goals flooded into Colorado from the United States and Mexico. In 1852,
Fort Massachusetts was built and then relocated to Fort Garland, about
20 miles southeast of the Great Sand Dunes, to safeguard travel or settlers
following the explorers into the San Luis Valley.
Although many settlers arrived in the San Luis Valley via the trails
from Santa Fe or La Veta Pass, several routes over the Sangre de Cristo
Mountains into the San Luis Valley were well-known to American Indians
and increasingly used by settlers in the 1800s. Medano Pass, also known
as Sand Hill pass, and Mosca Pass, also called Robidoux's Pass, offered
more direct routes form the growing front-range cities and dropped into
the San Luis Valley just east of the Great Sand Dunes. Trails were improved
into wagon routes and eventually into rough roads. The Mosca Pass Toll
Road was developed in the 1870s, and stages and the mail route used it
regularly through about 1911. That year, the western portion was badly
damaged in a flash flood. Partially rebuilt at times in the 1930s through
the 1950s, it has been repeatedly closed by flooding and is now a trail
for hikers.
Making a Home: Homesteaders
Homesteader Ulysses Herard, who with his family established a ranch and
homestead along Medano Creek in 1875, would have used the old Medano Pass
Road to travel to and from his home. The modern road, open only to 4WD,
high clearance vehicles, follows the old route, skirting the dunefield
before rising to Medano Pass and continuing east into the Wet Mountain
Valley. The Herards grazed and bred livestock in the mountain meadows,
built a home, raised horses, cattle, and chickens, and established a trout
hatchery in the stream.
Other families homesteaded near the Dunes as well, including the Teofilo
Trujillo family, who raised sheep west of the Dunes. And Frank and Virginia
Wellington, who built the cabin and hand-dug the irrigation ditch that
parallels Wellington Ditch Trail, just south of today's campground. Their
son, Charles, ran a sawmill on Sawmill Creek, just north of the campground.
As people established homes, they often petitioned the U.S. Postal Department
for post offices to serve their tiny villages. Zapata (1879); Blanca or
North Arrastre; Orean (1881); Mosco (1880); later called Montville (1887-1900);
Herard (1905); Liberty (1900); Duncan (1892) and others helped connect
isolated homesteaders with the larger world.
Seeking Wealth: The Gold Rush, 1853 and later
Gold and silver rushes occurred around the Rockies after 1853, bringing
miners by the thousands into the state and stimulating mining businesses
that operate to this day. Numerous small strikes occurred in the mountains
around the San Luis Valley. People had frequently speculated that gold
might be present in the Great Sand Dunes, and in the 1920s, local newspapers
ran articles estimating its worth at anywhere from 17 cents/ton to $3/ton.
Active placer mining operations sprang up along Medano Creek, and in 1932
the Volcanic Mining Company established a gold mill designed to recover
gold from the sand. Although minute quantities of gold were recovered,
the technique was too labor-intensive, the stream was too seasonal, and
the payout was too small to support any business for long.
Preserving the Beauty: Establishing a National Park Service Site
The idea that the Dunes could be destroyed by gold mining or concrete-making
alarmed residents of Alamosa and Monte Vista. By the 1920s, the Dunes
had become a source of pride for local people and a potential source of
tourist dollars for local businesses.
Members of the Ladies PEO sponsored a bill to Congress asking for national
monument status for the Great Sand Dunes. Widely supported by local businesses
and Chanbers of Commerce, the bill was signed into law in 1932 by President
Herbert Hoover.
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