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Road Trip Loop: See Colorado on this 10-day itinerary!

1/29/2021

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USA Today has put together an extensive circular road trip taking in much of Colorado including our slice of Southern Colorado.  The trip includes a stop in Antonito, a trade on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad, and an overnight at the Indiana Jones Bed and Breakfast. As you are cruising along the roads you'll be passing through the historic towns of Manassa, San Luis, Fort Garland, Walsenburg, on portions of the Los Caminos Antiguos Scenic and History Byway, and the Highway of Legends Scenic and Historic Byway.  If you are taking this trip during the summer make sure to stop in at the Conejos County Museum, Jack Dempsey Museum, Sangre de Cristo Cultural Center, Fort Garland Museum, Museum of Friends, Walsenburg Mining Museum, Huerfano Historical Society.

You'll also be traveling along other scenic byways as well including - Tracks Across Borders, San Juan Skyway, Trail of the Ancients.

​" Experience Colorado from top to bottom with this full Colorado loop, a 10-day road trip that will take you from Northern Colorado through Southern Colorado and back up north. And since this trip is set up as a loop, you can start at any point in the loop and circle back around.  Note: This drive does include mountain driving and roads that may be difficult or closed during winter, so plan accordingly." USA Today

Check all the details of the USA Today

#USAToday 
#ColoradoScenicByways 
#MysticSanLuisValley
#
TracksAcrossBorders
#LosCaminosAntiguosScenicByway 
#
HighwayofLegendsScenicByway
#SanJuanSkyway 
#
IndianaJonesBedandBreakfast

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Preserving our Dark Skies

1/18/2021

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The sky is filled with stars, as seen from Windy Point on Slumgullion Pass in the San Juan Mountains on Jan. 13, 2021. The winter constellation Orion is in the middle of the photo but is hard to see amidst all of the other stars visible in the night sky. The trees are lit from the headlights of a car.
San Luis Valley and Southern Colorado making history with our Dark Skies...


"SLUMGULLION PASS — Silent stars sparkle across the night sky and reflect off alpine snowfields like scattered diamonds, a treasure southwestern [all of Southern] Colorado towns are mobilizing to protect as never before by declaring dark zones.

Celestial views from remote spots, such as this pass at 11,530 feet in the San Juan Mountains, measure almost totally free of the artificial light that increasingly blots out starry skies in cities worldwide."

Read more at:
https://www.greeleytribune.com/2021/01/17/colorado-dark-skies-preservation/

#crestone #lakecity #creede #laveta #westcliffe #coloradostargazing #mysticsanluisvalley


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Where Was Iceville?

1/9/2021

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PictureMap showing the location of the Olsen/McClintock icehouse - Costilla County Abstract Company
​By P.R. "Bob" Griswold

​Perhaps it would be better to ask, "What was Iceville?" The name would imply that Iceville was a pleasant but cold little town with the usual shops along Main Street surrounded by a small residential section similar to most towns in the San Luis Valley.
 
Before 1930 there was no Iceville, and Iceville never was a town, just a place. This place began on July L 7, 1930, when the Trinchera Irrigation District, which included the Blanca area and which owned Smith Reservoir on Trinchera Creek, granted A. W. Olsen and W. W McClintock the right to cut ice on Smith Reservoir. The Irrigation District leased these two gentlemen land at the west end of the reservoir on which to build an ice storage house.

​The year 1930 was in the period when vegetables of all kinds were grown throughout the San Luis Valley for shipment to the major markets in the Midwest. The object of the deal with Olsen and McClintock was to furnish ice for the refrigerator cars loaded on the San Luis Valley Southern Railway which passed Smith Reservoir just a short distance to the west. On August 27, 1930, Olsen and McClintock entered into a contract with the San Luis Valley Southern to build the icehouse and to build a siding to it. At this time the San Luis Valley Southern Railway established the station known as Iceville 3.3 miles south of Blanca, but Iceville was not a town.

Excerpt for the San Luis Valley Historical Society - Historian -  Volume 21, Issue 4, 1989
Email: general@slvhistoricalsociety.org
​www.facebook.com/SLVHistoricalSociety


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The Return of Orlando Lujan Martinez

1/9/2021

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Picture"The Count of Costilla County," watercolor by Orlando Lujan Martinez
​Reprinting of article, "The Return of Orlando Lujan Martinez" by A. Rooney from the Summer/Fall 1983 issue of Alma Magazine

​
After 52 years in Denver's penetrating, inner city atmosphere of parking lots, bail bondsmen, crime and pollution, Orlando Lujan Martinez and his 80-year-old father packed their goods and left their downtown digs headed for el Valle de San Luis. 
 
His new home in Alamosa was at once familiar and comforting. It was, he said, as if he had finally come home. Although Orlando was born and raised in Denver, both parents were from the Valley, many of his relatives were living here and he had heard about and visited the great San Luis Valley all his life. 
 
As an architectural illustrator in Denver, Orlando was an artist in search of a theme. Since his arrival in the Valley, he has found a wealth of subject matter in people and places that make up his rediscovered home. His medium, watercolor, suits not only the flavor of the Hispanic culture, but also his own philosophy and lifestyle. 
 
Most of his Valley scenes are gentle still lifes of adobe houses, churches and villages with either the Sangre de Cristos or the San Juans as a backdrop. Occasionally, such as the cover watercolor of the "Count of Costilla County," he paints people. "The Count" has a surrealistic quality, yet it still manages to capture, primarily through the use of black-and-white, the essence and character of a southern Colorado Hispanic gentleman. 
 
Surprisingly, Orlando ranks his art as secondary in his life. His love of nature and his affection for people are primary. He is fascinated by people and is continually amazed at the beauty in and around the Valley.   

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by - Orlando Lujan Martinez

​With just the slightest provocation, in the style of a grand storyteller, he embellishes the sights and sounds of his world and recites passages from the collected works of his deeds and misdeeds. 

 
"People sometimes can't understand me," he said, because I'm different, unique." His uniqueness is immediately apparent in his speech and mannerisms. He punctuates his words with broad hand gestures and phrases such as, "Get that!" Contrary to his own perceptions of himself, he is a holdover from the Beat Generation and could well have been one of Kerouac's cohorts. He is a refreshing anachronism. 
 
Orlando's art education is a mixed bag of street and academic training. In Denver he lived just two blocks from the Denver Art Museum. His first memorable art experience came at seven years old. 

​"Me and a friend, Freddie Kramer, use to go up to the fourth floor of the Art Museum and look at paintings. Freddie and I use to sit hypnotized in front of the paintings, especially this one, Winslow Homer's 'Gulf Stream.' That was my first real relationship with art. I realized then he was a great artist. That painting, I think, is now in the Chicago Institute of Art." 

 
His formal training as an artist came at the University of Colorado, Rocky Mountain School of Art and the Colorado Institute of Art. His informal training came on the streets of Denver through the traditional vices of street life. Orlando says it was his Spanish-Tewa Indian heritage and his own self-regard that prevented him from joining many of his friends in the gutter. Also, five years ago, he passed through the San Luis Valley and felt a need to paint and preserve what he saw. It was only a matter of time before he returned to stay. 
 

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Orlando Lujan Martinez. Photo by A. Rooney
PictureOrland Lujan Martinez. Photo by A. Rooney

​"As an artist," he said, "I have a need to be recognized by my friends and respected by other artists. I've experienced nothing but good luck since coming to the Valley. I'm not a great materialist. I have a need to work with and serve people." 
 
Orlando is currently teaching watercolor classes through Alamosa School District's Community Education program. His studio is located on the second floor of the Chamber of Commerce Building at Cole Park. One-man shows of his work are scheduled this summer June 13-24 at the Hatfield Gallery at Adams State College; July 4-16 at the Creede Repertory Theatre; and August 4-12 at the Rio Grande Arts Center Gallery.



       ________________________________




Reprinting of article, "The Return of Orlando Lujan Martinez" from the Summer/Fall 1983 issue of Alma Magazine by A. Rooney

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Aspen Creek Sawmill School

1/3/2021

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School class photo that is featured on the 1985 SLV Historian, Volume 17, Issue 4

Aspen Creek Sawmill School, 1929-1931

Back row (L to R): unknown, Ethyl Franks, Margaret Black, Albert Lenew, 
unknown, George franks, and teacher Ruth Denton.
Front row: P. Nations, Daniel Nations, unknown, Barney Black,
Rob Nations, unknown, unknown.
"Aspen Creek Sawmill School, also known as "W. R. Black Sawmill School," was established by Ernest and Barney Black's father, W. R. Black, who had a school built for his sawmill camp in the fall of 1928 due to the problem of transportation of the camp's schoolchildren to Del Norte.

This school was located west on Highway 160 from Del Norte, turning left onto Pinos Creek (County Road 14) for approximately twelve miles to where a locked metal gate and dirt road can be seen on the right side of Pinos Creek Road. The Aspen Creek School and sawmill were located about two more miles up this small dirt road, winding south and west from the locked gate, on the west branch of Pinos Creek. The one-room, frame school was perched on a little hill about three hundred yards northeast of the sawmill and close to the junction of the two creeks. The schoolhouse is no longer there, and the land belongs to the Forest Service." by Joan Pace Hanna in her article titled "Reading, 'Riting, and 'Rithmetic in the Early Rural Schools of Del Norte (Part 3)
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Thimble, Thimble, Who has the Thimble!

1/2/2021

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"For years I have been collecting thimbles, beginning with ones from my family. The idea came to me of making an historical collection within my personal collection. These thimbles, which belong or have belonged to pioneer ladies in the San Luis Valley in Southern Colorado, I can enjoy now. They are to be placed in the Saguache County Museum at my death. Information, when available, is listed on a card for each lady whose thimble is in the small type drawer, housing forty-two thimbles. 
 
Thimbles of aluminum, china, silver, gold, copper, brass, plastic, and steel; advertising, jeweled, and children's thimbles all are there. 
 
One of the oldest appearing thimbles was found up Taylor Canyon by Jerry and Kenola Wintz in 1971 in the ruins of a homestead. The thimble has been bent and burned, but I treasure it, for its owner was no doubt the pioneer lady Taylor. 
 
Many of the thimbles have been given me by the ladies themselves, while others have been given me by members of their families. I purchased only one of these historical thimbles. 
 
How nice it will be for future generations to be able to locate and see an ancestor's sewing thimble in the museum in Saguache and perhaps add some personal information to the cards there. If anyone would like to place a lady's thimble in this collection, please contact me at Villa Grove, Colorado. Thimbles are easy to mail and easily lost in a home environment. In the museum they will be permanently on display for everyone's enjoyment. "
 
Elaine Woodard
Villa Grove, Colorado

Article originally ran in the 1985 SLV Historian, Volume 17, Issue 1


Update on this collection -- The Saguache County Museum has a nice display of Mrs. Woodard's Thimble collection that includes origin stories for the thimbles. The museum is hoping to open for the 2021 Memorial Day Weekend. ​  Read more about the museum, its collection and the history of Saguache County @ Saguache County Museum's webpage.
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