Though the post-office has restricted the use of the name to this village, the whole region, on account of its peculiar beds of ochre earth, was formerly known as La Tierra Amarilla. This has been abbreviated, not only in spelling, but in speaking, until its ordinary pronunciation is Terr-amaréea. In 1837 a tract forty miles square, in this part of the valley of the Chama, was granted by the Mexican government to Señor Manuel Martin and his eight sons. There was a failure to ratify the matter somehow, and in 1860, old Manuel having died, his eldest son, Francisco Martin, applied to the Surveyor-General of the United States to have the grant confirmed to him, his brothers “and their companions” resident thereon. The Surveyor-General, however, struck the “companions” out, and ratified the grant only to the heirs of Manuel Martin. When this was discovered, Francisco, with the consent of his brothers, at once gave to each incumbent the land he occupied, and a deed for the same. Soon after this the Martins sold out all the domain, getting scarcely ten thousand dollars for the whole million of acres, which passed chiefly into the hands of a gentleman of Santa Fe. The next proprietor is to be an English company, which proposes to colonize the tract with British farmers and stock-raisers. The price paid, it is said, amounts to more than two millions of dollars. Pending these successive arrangements, the unfortunate settlers found their deeds valueless, because of informality,—a neglect not at all strange in a Mexican hidalgo. On the point of being ousted of their supposed proprietary rights, if not actually dispossessed, they bethought themselves of a lucky law of the territory, which gives ownership to anyone who can show a color of title, and undisputed possession for ten years. This statute saved them, and they will be bought out by the Englishmen.
Farming here hardly yields enough of grain to meet the local demand, except in the oat crop. The soil is good, the irrigating facilities very large and convenient, timber is plenty, and the climate superb. Yet only a portion of the wide, fertile bottom-land is under cultivation, and the valley invites intelligent immigration with an array of inducements unusual in New Mexico.
But there is no laxity in the matter of wool-producing, a full million of sheep belonging at Tierra Amarilla, distributed among about two hundred owners. These are never sold, except under stress of need for money, when they bring from one to two dollars each. The value of the total flock, then, will be somewhat over a million of dollars; while the annual production of wool will amount to more than two millions of pounds, worth more or less than half a million dollars, according to the price of wool. Its natural outlet to market is through Chama and Amargo. Early in September the flocks are started on their march to the southern part of the territory, where they can feed unharmed by winter storms.
I do not know a better place to study the primitive life of New Mexico, with all its quaint features; and the traveler who follows our example, and digresses long enough to ride down to the settlements I have mentioned, will not regret his short divergence from the beaten track.
Resuming the iron trail westward from Chama, all the way to Willow Creek the same beautiful parks of yellow pine continued, and the track crossed and recrossed a sparkling brook. Passing the mines of excellent bituminous coal at Monero, and surmounting a low water shed, which is in reality the continental divide, the deeply-notched tops of the Sierra Madre came into view in the north, and we spanned the first of the many streams that flow down from it into the Rio San Juan. A birds-eye view of this well-wooded and almost flat region, just on the line between Colorado and New Mexico, would have shown it to consist of a series of low, slightly-tilted ridges, parallel with which ran the serpentine and deeply-sunken rivers.
The first or easternmost of these streams is the Rio Navajo, encountered near Amargo, and up to which, all the way from Chama, nothing is to be found save grazing land, devoted mainly to sheep. Though its bottoms available for agriculture are probably broader than the water it contains is able to irrigate, far more farming remains to be done here than has yet been undertaken. The Rio San Juan, into which the Rio Navajo empties just west of Juanita, is the great drainage channel of this portion of Colorado and New Mexico, and a river of power even here. Its crystal-clear waters to-day prattle innocently, but they sometimes come down from the heights like an Indian raid, a besom of destruction for anything not as firmly anchored as the granite buttresses of the hills themselves.
From Amargo,—there is no end of bloody history attached to El Amargo and its fine cañon, dating from the early days of settlement, Indian fighting and border ruffianism,—runs the old stage-road northward to Pagosa Springs, Animas City, and the interior mines. The tales of that thoroughfare would furnish a whole library of flash literature without going much astray from the truth.
Pagosa is the far-famed “big medicine” of the Utes,—the greatest thermal fountains on the continent. “The largest of these springs is at least forty feet in diameter, and hot enough to cook an egg in a few minutes. Carbonic acid gas and steam bubble up in great quantities from the bottom, and keep the surface always in a state of agitation. The water has the faculty of dividing the light into its component colors, producing effects very similar to those of the opalescent glass of commerce. Around the large spring, and extending for a mile down the creek, are innumerable smaller ones, many of which discharge vast amounts of almost boiling water. These, being highly charged with saline matter, have produced by deposition all, or nearly all, of the ground in their vicinity, and their streams meander through its cavernous structure, often disappearing and reappearing many times before they finally emerge into the river. This spot must become a great popular resort. Its plentifully timbered and mountainous surroundings enhance the interest it otherwise possesses for the traveler and health-seeker, and the medicinal value of the springs claims the attention of all who can afford time to visit them.
“The village of Pagosa Springs is situated about four miles south of the base of the San Juan range, upon the immediate southeastern bank of the Rio San Juan. It consists of a group of dwellings, stores, and bath-houses, among which the steam of the hot springs issues in such clouds as at times to render the entire place invisible. Immediately above the town, on the opposite side of the river, rises a flat-topped, isolated hill, whose summit contains a plateau large enough to liberally accommodate the government post which has been erected there. Utilizing the pines so abundant in the neighborhood, the buildings are all made of logs; and model log-houses they are. A more inviting military camp, both as regards location and construction, could not well be conceived.”
Pagosa lies in the heart of that splendid pine forest, which covers a tract one hundred and thirty miles east and west by from twenty to forty miles north and south. Here the trees grow tall and straight, and of enormous size. No underbrush hides their bright, clean shafts, and, curiously enough, it is only in special locations that any low ones are to be found. These monarchs of the forest seem to be the last of their race, and, like the Indians, are doomed very soon to disappear. They are of immense value, for they form a huge storehouse of the finest lumber in a country poorly supplied in general with such material.