​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

​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.   

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)

"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.

"As the year of 2020 comes to an end, it is time to thank those who have supported Rio Grande County Museum with financial donations, their taking time to visit and share their memories and see what the Museum has to offer over the past several years. We fail to mention the importance of the artifact donations that continue to be received. These items are what gives us the collections that can be utilized in displays and used to continue history. These donations become the archives that are so important to the history of the area."  read more...

Reflections, remembrances and traditional southwestern recipes

Story and photographs by Marilyn Maquire

"San Luis Valley nights have grown long and the smell of pinyon smoke floats in the sharp, cold night air. The holiday season is upon us. While much of the coun­try 1s planning for the Christmas turkey and sing­ing "Silent Night," kitchens across the Southwest are rich with the smells of posole, red chile sauce, biscochitos, and empanadas, and the soft sounds of "Vamos Todos a Belen" ("Let's Go to Beth­lehem") and "Noche de Paz" ("Silent Night") fill the churches." ....

Reprinting of article from the 1983/84 Winter/Spring issue of ALMA magazine - the Magazine of the San Luis Valley


Read the full story and recipes by downloading the PDF

Latinos in Boulder County, Colorado 1900-1980 Vol 1; History and Contributions 

[with many genealogical connections back to the San Luis Valley]

by
Marjorie K. McIntosh
Distinguished Professor of History Emerita University of Colorado at Boulder
​

Excerpt from the Latinos in Boulder County, CO 1900-1980

"Since the beginning of the twentieth century, people from Spanish- speaking backgrounds have played essential roles in Boulder County, Colorado. Immigrants from Mexico, northern New Mexico, and southern Colorado provided much of the labor that fueled two of eastern Boulder County’s main economic activities prior to around 1940: growing and processing sugar beets; and coal mining. Work in the beet fields required men, women, and children to stay in a stooped position, using short- handled tools, for hours at a time, often under a hot sun. The housing provided for agricultural laborers was generally deplorable. Coal miners engaged in physically demanding and potentially dangerous work in dark tunnels, always facing the possibility of cave-ins or explosions. Some of their families lived in camps next to the mines, with company stores where purchases for food and other supplies were deducted from miners’ wages. Although Hispanics faced overt racism especially in the 1920s and 1930s—with armed attacks on their unions, threats of violence from the Ku Klux Klan, exclusion from stores and restaurants, and mass deportation orders—they held together in strong families and maintained their faith that life in this region offered a brighter future for themselves and their children. In the decades between 1940 and 1980, access to education and better employment options contributed to ongoing immigration and brought many Boulder County Latinas/os into the wider community, where they continued to make valuable contributions. Returning veterans in the 1940s and 1950s and Chicano civil rights activists in the later 1960s and 1970s took the lead in tackling discrimination. Latino culture expanded the horizons of a predominantly Anglo county."

This two-volume set describes the history of Latinas/os living in Boulder County between 1900 and 1980"....

To read the complete edition of Volume 1 - Read more

Written for:
Boulder County Latino History Project
With assistance from:  Longmont Museum
Endorsed by: Department of Ethnic Studies, University of Colorado at Boulder

"In the middle of Colorado’s San Luis Valley [in Antonito], a progressive architecture and design firm is proving that everything old is new again. Also, that the future is mud."

"Combining indigenous mud-based building materials with 21st century robotics, California-based Rael San Fratello created the oddly beautiful structures of “Casa Covida,” their “proto-architectures” that connect high- and low-tech traditions. Its name is a nod to both the pandemic and the Spanish word for “cohabitation.”
​
"The project recently took a virtual bow in an impressive hour-long event hosted by the Architectural League NY. (The video is online.) The partners, Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, spoke from Antonito, in southern Colorado, and took questions about their work and about “the social agency of design.”

Read more at The Colorado Sun

Video  --  Gather round the hearth in Rael San Fratello's Casa Covida, a house made from 3D-printed mud.

By Stephanie Butzer
The Denver Channel

​As the first fingers of spring started to peel back winter’s hold in 1874, a man staggered out of the mountains and into Lake City, ready to spill a story — or two, or three — that few would believe. He’d quickly become known as the Colorado Cannibal.

It’s a tale as puzzling as it is horrific, and somehow, from the safe distance of about 150 years, humor has wiggled its way in.

His name was Alferd Packer.

Recognize the name, or perhaps know his story? He became somewhat of a Colorado celebrity in the mid-1900s, when you could find the Packer name in everything from a wilderness cookbook title to a festival name to a musical created by CU Boulder students. People learned of his story and instead of turning away in disgust, they leaned into it. Unabashedly embraced it.

An article from April 1984 in The Washington Post captured the absurdity in one of its opening paragraphs: “In the days before bean sprouts and granola, when the West was raw and men ate men, Packer chewed his way into the hearts of Coloradans by devouring five gold-seeking companions.”
Of course, under the silliness is the much darker story of how those five men met their horrific demise in the freezing, lonely mountains.

The particulars around what actually happened are foggy at best. Packer was the only one from the group to live to tell the tale and he told several. And those details are now buried — and in some instances, altered — under 150 years of history. To dig up what happened, we turned to the details in official court documents and the ink-smudged columns of the local newspapers, both from the late 1800s.

These documents have preserved countless moments from the case, such as Packer’s statement about his alleged crimes as he stood in front of a courthouse packed with people who were no doubt fascinated that a cannibal was in their midst and wondering if he’d get his just desserts.

Even in those moments, just before his sentencing, it was not absolutely certain if Packer had planned to eat the men through a twisted, murderous mind or if it just unfolded that way in an equally desperate and reluctant struggle for survival.

But either way, he had surely bit off more than he could chew.


Introducing Alferd Packer, Colorado’s Cannibal

Packer’s story starts in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. According to the April 20, 1883 edition of the Lake City Mining Register, he was born on Jan. 31, 1842, though other reports list his birthdate as Nov. 21 of that year.

​Andrew Gulliford, a professor of southwest studies and history at Fort Lewis College in Durango, said Packer was “a little bit of a drifter” and possibly a Civil War veteran. The Washington Post wrote in a June 8, 1989 article that Packer was discharged from the Union Army in 1862 for epilepsy. While he re-enlisted in another regime, he was discharged for the same reason, according to the City of Littleton.

In an unproven story, but one widely spread, a young Packer visited a tattoo artist who made the permanent error of inking “Alferd” instead of “Alfred” on Packer’s skin. He apparently embraced the typo and ended up adopting the name, though his first name, legally, remained Alfred, per court records.

Between 1863 and 1873, Packer moved west to pursue multiple jobs varying from hunting and trapping to guiding and mining, according to the Hinsdale County Museum in Lake City.

Gulliford said Packer was just one of the thousands of drifters who decided to embark on that journey.

In his early 30s, Packer volunteered to guide a group of 21 men through the Rocky Mountains starting in the area around Salt Lake City, Utah, despite having no weapons, little food or provisions, and limited skills. Reports vary on their final destination — most reports say they were bound for the Los Piños Indian Agency outside Saguache, others say they were headed for present-day Breckenridge.
They were set to start the long journey late in 1873.

Just in time for a nightmarish snowstorm.

‘Then, we gave up to die’

Packer’s stories start about the same — all of them.

He led the group to Ute Indian Chief Ouray’s winter camp near modern-day Montrose, arriving in late January 1874, according to the Hinsdale County Museum.

Knowing another party had left the camp and successfully made it to Los Piños Indian Agency, Packer said he thought his group could do the same. Only five others decided to take the risk with him. Those men were Frank Miller, Wilson Bell, James Humphreys, George Noon and Israel Swan.

The six men took advantage of Chief Ouray’s shelter and food for a few days and left to continue the journey in early February 1874.

It was the last time five of those men were seen alive.

On April 16, 1874, as winter gave way to spring, Packer emerged from the mountains, according to reports in the Lake City Mining Register. He was alone.

​Read more...

By John M. Motter
PREVIEW Columnist

John R. Curry, editor of Silverton’s newspaper, published a letter written from Pagosa Springs in March of 1881. It said, in part, “Pagosa Springs, the largest, hottest, and most singularly curious hot springs of their class in the world, are no longer isolated, as they have been in times past, shut off from the great traveling thoroughfares of the country by a formidable range of mountains, a trip across which any season of the year, by such conveyances as were available, was unpleasant and tedious to the extreme.

​“Now these difficulties have been overcome by the approach of the Denver and Rio Grande railroad, which was extended over the range in question and has a station at Chama only forty-five miles distant from the Springs.

“J. L. Sanderson and Co. and Wall and Witter have established lines of coaches between Chama and Durango, the flourishing city of the Animas Valley … This has given initiative to hotels and building houses … persons coming here now to see these wonderful springs and to bathe in their benefit-giving waters, can feel assured that comfortable lodging will be provided and something to eat at reasonable prices.”

The letter was a response to Curry’s unfavorable article the previous fall, when he reported traveling through Pagosa Springs. He chose to journey by freight wagon along the road between Silverton and the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad ending atop Cumbres Pass [in the San Luis Valley].

Of Pagosa Springs, he said, “At Pagosa Springs, there are at present very slim hotel accommodations; it is certainly the best point for someone to locate and erect a hotel of 30 or 40 rooms that we know of in southwestern Colorado.” He stayed overnight at the “Hotel de Blair.”

​By May of 1881, Pagosa Springs could boast of its first public bath house, a frame building erected by Thomas Blair. It had a large plunge bath, fully 4.5 feet deep, and several single bath tubs, sufficient to accommodate all visitors. Pagosa Springs was on the rise.

​#sanluisvalley #slv #mysticsanluisvalley #cumbrespass #johnmotter 

article originally published in the Pagosa Springs Sun newspaper