— Subscribe to this topic on PagosaSUN.comPagosa’s Past: Chief Ouray: chief spokesman for the Utes
By John M. Motter PREVIEW Columnist I have been writing about the history of the Southern Utes, our Native American neighbors to the west of Pagosa Springs. I’ve described a…
Pagosa’s Past: The Meeker Massacre
By John M. Motter PREVIEW Columnist This week’s column is continued from last week. We’ve been writing about the creation in 1878-1879 of the Southern Ute Indian Agency in Ignacio.…
Pagosa’s Past: Another agreement with the Southern Utes
By John M. Motter PREVIEW Columnist We’ve been writing about the Southern Utes of Ignacio and their contacts with the white settlers of Colorado during 1876. The Utes were unhappy…
Pagosa’s Past: Pioneers and Ute Indians
By John M. Motter PREVIEW Columnist We’ve been writing about the relationship between native Ute Indians and European settlers pre-1850 in the Rocky Mountains. By 1868, after a series of…
Pagosa’s Past: Fort Lewis, Fort Massachusetts, Fort Garland and Fort Lowell
By John M. Motter PREVIEW Columnist In the early days when white and Hispanic settlers first started exploring San Juan Country in search of gold, the Southern Utes they found…
Pagosa’s Past: Government treaties and the Utes
By John M. Motter PREVIEW Columnist During Pagosa Country’s pioneer days, relations between the invading whites and the Utes followed a precedent repeated frequently across the North American continent: encroachment…
Pagosa’s Past: Searching for gold in Colorado
By John M. Motter PREVIEW Columnist In 1859, thousands of Americans stampeded into the Denver area. The Pikes Peak gold rush was on. Many of the prospectors looking for gold…
Pagosa’s Past: Entering Ute Country
By John M. Motter PREVIEW Columnist The Spanish government tried to prevent unauthorized trade with the Utes. Spanish frontiersmen living in remote frontier outposts such as Abiquiu tended to ignore…
Pagosa’s Past: A look at the Southern Utes
By John M. Motter PREVIEW Columnist Pagosa is a Ute Indian word meaning “stinking waters.” It is appropriate that Pagosa Country was named by and for the Ute Indians. When…
Pagosa’s Past: The Basketmakers and the Great Basin
By John M. Motter PREVIEW Columnist We’ve been writing about our neighbors, the Jicarilla Apaches, who were greatly affected by events happening around them in the late 1600s. Jicarilla is…
