Last updated: April 22, 2024
Place
Boggsville Historic Site
Quick Facts
Location:
two miles south of Las Animas on Colorado Highway 101
Significance:
ranch near the river on a branch of the Santa Fe Trail
Designation:
National Historic District
MANAGED BY:
Amenities
1 listed
Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits
Boggsville, located on the Purgatoire River, was first used as a campsite by the Plains Indians. With the fur trade vanishing, many former mountain men found work raising livestock. Through his wife’s government land grant connections, Thomas Boggs started his ranch near the river on a branch of the Santa Fe Trail. It became known as Boggsville after he and his wife, Rumalda Luna Bent Boggs, built their first home. John Wesley Prowers moved to the Boggs’s ranch in 1867 along with frontiersman Kit Carson and his family. A year later, with Carson in poor health, his wife, Josefa, died from childbirth complications. Kit died several weeks later at nearby Fort Lyon. Thomas Boggs was the executor of Carson's will.
Site Information
Location (two miles south of Las Animas on Colorado Highway 101)
Available Facilities: Today, Boggsville is a renovation project in progress. Seeing the site now, which has just a few buildings and old foundations, it is hard to imagine that here is where the cattle and sheep industries first boomed in Colorado. A lot of the early history of Colorado started here. Slowly, some of the buildings are being restored and more are going to be rebuilt.
Exhibits: A bronze state historical marker is located along Colorado Highway 101, and there are several interpretive markers along an area hiking path.