They came from all walks of life. Some, like the Ute Indians, had been in Southwest Colorado for centuries. Others were newcomers from far-away places who came to make Southwest Colorado their home. They had a variety of ethnic backgrounds, religious creeds and cultural roots. They included movers and shakers as well as members of the working class. Together they were a microcosm of the proverbial melting pot in the American West.
Southern bands of the Nuche, or Ute people, believe they have lived in Southwest Colorado since time immemorial. Anthropologists variously believe the Utes either emerged from earlier Archaic period cultural groups already present in the area or migrated into the area a few centuries ago. They speak a Uto-Aztecan language and, interestingly, count the Hopis among their linguistic relatives.
Historically they were nomadic hunters and gathereres who adopted Plains Indian culture. They were one of the first Indian groups in teh Southwest to obtain horses from the Spanish and were instrumental in disseminating the horse to other groups.
When the San Juan mining excitement began in earnest in the early 1870s, the government found it necessary to convince teh Utes to cede a portion of their 1868 reservation, which comprised most of the western third of Colorado.
The Utes finally agreed to do this by terms of the 1874 Brunot Agreement. Further modifications to the reservation resulted in the evolution of the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute reservations in Southwest Colorado.
Hispanic people had been residents of the Southwest since New Mexico was colonized in 1598. The opening of the San Juan Cession and other events attracted Hispanic settlers from northern New Mexico into Southwest Colorado. Perhaps the greatest factor was the establishment of the Southern Ute Agency on the Los Pinos River at a location later known as Ignacio. The agency ultimately exerted a strong economic, political, and social influence on the Hispanic population of the area.
Early settlers in the San Juans came from all parts of the United States and many foreign countries. Most of the newcomers were men, although San Juan pioneers included many women and children. Elizabeth Hazelton Phelps, in fact, apparantly gave birth to her son, Frank, at the first Animas City in 1861. Elizabeth and her husband, Orange, were members of the Baker Party, and Frank's birth would have been the first non-Indian birth in what became La Plata County.
Irish-born Robert Dwyer settled the first homestead in what would become Durango; Hans Aspaas' Norwegian family were early Parrott City residents and helped found the town of Ignacio; John Taylor, a former member of a black regiment in the Civil War, claimed to be the "first white settler in the Pine River Vally"; Martha Clarke, a Minnesota immigrant, taught at the
Fort Lewis Indian school, Olga Schaaf Little, whose family came from Germany, became a famous burro packer in the La Plata Mountains; little Una C. Pearson, the first child born in Durango, was showered with gifts, including the lot at 1004 E. Third Avenue where her father built a home for the family.
Their stories are fascinating, their accomplishments legion. Whether they came in the 1870s, the 1920s or even later, all of them played a role in building up the Durango area. Their descendants, in many cases four or five generations removed are making their own histories in the twenty-first century.
