![Rourke Ranch Historic District house](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Rourke_Ranch_Historic_District_house.jpg)
Comanche National Grassland is a
National Grassland
A national grassland is an area of protected and managed federal lands in the United States authorized by Title III of the Bankhead–Jones Farm Tenant Act of 1937. For administrative purposes, they are essentially identical to national forests ...
located in southeastern
Colorado
Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...
,
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. It is the sister grassland of
Cimarron National Grassland
Cimarron National Grassland is a National Grassland located in Morton County, Kansas, United States, with a very small part extending eastward into Stevens County. Cimarron National Grassland is located near Comanche National Grassland which i ...
and contains both
prairie
Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the ...
grassland
A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur natur ...
s and
canyon
A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tenden ...
s. It is separated into two sections, each operated by a local
ranger
A Ranger is typically someone in a military/paramilitary or law enforcement role specializing in patrolling a given territory, called “ranging”. The term most often refers to:
* Park ranger or forest ranger, a person charged with protecting and ...
district, one of which is in
Springfield
Springfield may refer to:
* Springfield (toponym), the place name in general
Places and locations Australia
* Springfield, New South Wales (Central Coast)
* Springfield, New South Wales (Snowy Monaro Regional Council)
* Springfield, Queenslan ...
and the other of which is in
La Junta
La Junta is a home rule municipality in , the county seat of, and the most populous municipality of Otero County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 7,322 at the 2020 United States Census. La Junta is located on the Arkansas Ri ...
. The grassland is administered by the Forest Service together with the
Pike
Pike, Pikes or The Pike may refer to:
Fish
* Blue pike or blue walleye, an extinct color morph of the yellow walleye ''Sander vitreus''
* Ctenoluciidae, the "pike characins", some species of which are commonly known as pikes
* ''Esox'', genus of ...
and
San Isabel National Forests, and the
Cimarron National Grassland
Cimarron National Grassland is a National Grassland located in Morton County, Kansas, United States, with a very small part extending eastward into Stevens County. Cimarron National Grassland is located near Comanche National Grassland which i ...
, from common headquarters located in
Pueblo, Colorado
Pueblo () is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality that is the county seat and the List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous municipality of Pueblo County, Colorado, Pueblo County, Colorado ...
.
Geography
Comanche National Grassland consists of in two units: (1) Timpas, south of La Junta, and (2) Carrizo, south of Springfield. Both units have privately owned tracts of ranchland mixed in with the government-owned land.
Most of the Carrizo Unit is in the watershed of Carrizo Creek, a tributary of the
Cimarron River. The Timpas Unit is in the watershed of the
Purgatoire River
The Purgatoire River ( es, Río Purgatorio) is a river in southeastern Colorado, United States. The river is also known locally as the Purgatory River or the Picketwire River. ''Purgatoire'' means Purgatory in French. French trappers named the ri ...
, also called the Purgatory and Picketwire River.
Elevations on the grassland range from in the southeastern corner of the Carrizo Unit on the
Oklahoma
Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
border to on Fallas Mesa in the northwestern part of the same unit. Average annual precipitation on the grassland ranges from at La Junta to at Springfield. Summer temperatures are hot with the average high above ; winters are cold with average low temperatures in January below .
Flora and fauna
Vegetation is mostly
steppe
In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes.
Steppe biomes may include:
* the montane grasslands and shrublands biome
* the temperate grasslands, ...
and
shortgrass prairie
The shortgrass prairie is an ecosystem located in the Great Plains of North America. The two most dominant grasses in the shortgrass prairie are blue grama (''Bouteloua gracilis'') and buffalograss (''Bouteloua dactyloides''), the two less domina ...
, although
pinyon and
juniper
Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' () of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, from the Arcti ...
trees are found in rocky canyons and
cottonwoods and
willow
Willows, also called sallows and osiers, from the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 400 speciesMabberley, D.J. 1997. The Plant Book, Cambridge University Press #2: Cambridge. of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist s ...
s grow near streams.
Western soapberry and
netleaf hackberry are common in some areas near canyon bottoms, as well as some larger
Gambel oak
''Quercus gambelii'', with the common name Gambel oak, is a deciduous small tree or large shrub that is widespread in the foothills and lower mountains of western North America. It is also regionally called scrub oak, oak brush, and white oak.
...
.
Chickasaw plum
''Prunus angustifolia'', known commonly as Chickasaw plum, Cherokee plum, Florida sand plum, sandhill plum, or sand plum, is a North American species of plum-bearing tree. It was originally cultivated by Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Nativ ...
and
fragrant mimosa are occasional on uplands within grass cover. A few
ponderosa pine
''Pinus ponderosa'', commonly known as the ponderosa pine, bull pine, blackjack pine, western yellow-pine, or filipinus pine is a very large pine tree species of variable habitat native to mountainous regions of western North America. It is the ...
s are found on cool, moist hillsides.
Wildlife on the grassland includes
pronghorn
The pronghorn (, ) (''Antilocapra americana'') is a species of artiodactyl (even-toed, hoofed) mammal indigenous to interior western and central North America. Though not an antelope, it is known colloquially in North America as the American a ...
,
prairie dog
Prairie dogs (genus ''Cynomys'') are herbivorous burrowing ground squirrels native to the grasslands of North America. Within the genus are five species: black-tailed, white-tailed, Gunnison's, Utah, and Mexican prairie dogs. In Mexico, p ...
s,
lesser prairie chicken
The lesser prairie chicken (''Tympanuchus pallidicinctus'') is a species in the grouse family.
Description
It is a medium to large bird, striped white and brown, slightly smaller and paler than its near relative the greater prairie chicken (''T. ...
s,
mule deer
The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer.
Unlike the related whit ...
,
elk
The elk (''Cervus canadensis''), also known as the wapiti, is one of the largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. The common ...
,
wild turkey
The wild turkey (''Meleagris gallopavo'') is an Upland game bird, upland ground bird native to North America, one of two extant species of Turkey (bird), turkey and the heaviest member of the order Galliformes. It is the ancestor to the domestic ...
,
golden eagle
The golden eagle (''Aquila chrysaetos'') is a bird of prey living in the Northern Hemisphere. It is the most widely distributed species of eagle. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. They are one of the best-known bird of p ...
,
swift fox
The swift fox (''Vulpes velox'') is a small light orange-tan fox around the size of a domestic cat found in the western grasslands of North America, such as Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. It also lives in southern Ma ...
, and infrequent roadrunners. Three hundred and twenty-eight species of birds, including many Eastern birds at the limit of their range, have been recorded in
Baca County
Baca County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,506. The county seat is Springfield.
Located at the southeast corner of Colorado, the county shares state borders with Kansas, New Mexic ...
where most of the Carrizo unit is located.
Beginning around the start of September, male tarantulas in the park will leave their burrows to search for females, which are in their own holes. Tarantulas are often seen crossing the road because they’re easy to pick out on the pavement.
History
The marks of ancient American Indians are found in the Grassland in petroglyphs on many of the rocks and cliff faces in the canyons. Some of the rock art may be as old as 8,000 years and some are so new that they depict horses which arrived in the Southwest with the Spanish in the 16th century.
The early Indians lived in rock shelters, some of which have been found in the Grassland, and practiced a hunting and gathering culture. Around 1000 AD, a people called the Apishipa began farming in the region, however their efforts were unsuccessful .
Apache
The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño an ...
inhabited this area when the Spaniards arrived. They were pushed southward by the
Comanche
The Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ ( com, Nʉmʉnʉʉ, "the people") are a Native American tribe from the Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the federally recognized Comanche Nation, headquartered in La ...
in the 18th century.
Tipi ring
Tipi rings are circular patterns of stones left from an encampment of Post-Archaic, protohistoric and historic Native Americans.Cassells, Steve. (1997). ''The Archaeology of Colorado.'' Boulder: Johnson Books. pp. 224-227. . They are found primar ...
s – stones holding down the edges of circular
tipi
A tipi , often called a lodge in English, is a conical tent, historically made of animal hides or pelts, and in more recent generations of canvas, stretched on a framework of wooden poles. The word is Siouan languages, Siouan, and in use in Dakot ...
s – are common.
[
A branch of the ]Santa Fe Trail
The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri, with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, who departed from the Boonslick region along the Missouri River, th ...
ran through the Timpas unit and from the 1820s onward wagon trains from Missouri and Kansas loaded with goods for New Mexico followed the trail. Among the first non-Indian settlers on the Grassland was a group of eleven New Mexican families who settled along the Purgatory River in 1871. In the same year, Eugene and Mary Rourke established a ranch nearby. Homesteaders soon followed the ranchers and much of the grassland was devoted to growing Broomcorn
''Sorghum'' () is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the grass family ( Poaceae). Some of these species are grown as cereals for human consumption and some in pastures for animals. One species is grown for grain, while many ot ...
. The Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s. The phenomenon was caused by a combination of both natural factors (severe drought) an ...
of the 1930s defeated the farmers and the Federal government bought the land comprising the present National Grassland from its bankrupt owners. Comanche National Grassland was established in 1960.[ Grazing permits for cattle are issued by the Forest Service to ranchers for most lands belonging to the National Grassland.]
An important addition occurred in 1991 when the U.S. Army transferred of land in the Purgatoire River Canyon to the National Grassland. The Army lands were part of the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site
The Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site (also Pinon and Pinyon) is a 235,896 acre (955 km2) U.S. Army base in southeastern Colorado. The Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site (PCMS) is a training site for Fort Carson. In 2003, the U.S. Army announced a plan t ...
(PCMS), a facility devoted to military exercises. However, In 2007, the Army announced a plan to expand the PCMS by purchasing additional land and seeking to transfer the lands of the Comanche National Grassland to Army ownership. The expansion plan, to be implemented in several phases, would increase the size of the PCMS to several million acres, making it the largest military base in the United States. If implemented, the plan would virtually eliminate private land ownership and ranching in Southeastern Colorado as well as abolish the National Grassland and displace 17,000 people. Local citizens and politicians protested the expansion plan of PCMS. On November 25, 2013, the Army announced that its plan to expand the Piñon Canyon Maneuver site had been cancelled.
Recreation, Timpas Unit
Picketwire Canyon is about deep and contains the Purgatoire River track site
The Purgatoire River track site, also called the Picketwire Canyonlands tracksite, is one of the largest dinosaur tracksites in North America. The site is located on public land of the Comanche National Grassland, along the Purgatoire ("P ...
, one of the largest dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...
track-ways in the world, in the Morrison Formation
The Morrison Formation is a distinctive sequence of Late Jurassic, Upper Jurassic sedimentary rock found in the western United States which has been the most fertile source of dinosaur fossils in North America. It is composed of mudstone, sandsto ...
. More than 1,300 tracks of Brontosaurs and Allosaurs
Allosauroidea is a superfamily or clade of theropod dinosaurs which contains four families — the Metriacanthosauridae, Allosauridae, Carcharodontosauridae, and Neovenatoridae. Allosauroids, alongside the family Megalosauroidea, were among the ...
150 million years old are preserved in the rocks.
The canyon and the dinosaur tracks are accessible by a hiking, biking, and horseback trail that leads one-way through the canyon to the Dolores Mission, the ruins of a small 19th century Catholic church, the dinosaur tracks, and the adobe-buildings of the Rourke ranch, which operated between 1871 and 1971 and is preserved as a National Historic Site. The trail is normally closed to motorized vehicles. On weekends, rangers lead guided tours into the canyon in all-wheel drive vehicles with visitors providing their own vehicles.
Vogel Canyon. This is a side canyon of the Purgatory River. There is a picnic area and eight miles of easy trails follow the mesa top or lead into the small, scenic canyon which has springs, old ruins, and rock art.
Santa Fe Trail Historic Sites. The Sierra Vista Overlook, Timpas Picnic Area, and Iron Springs preserve a section of the Santa Fe Trail. The overlook has a view of the Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...
, away. Stone posts indicate the Santa Fe Trail and can be followed on foot for three miles between Sierra Vista and Timpas Picnic area. A one-half mile nature trail leads to Timpas Creek, one of the few watering holes along this section of the Santa Fe Trail.
Recreation, Carrizo Unit
Picture Canyon. Located just north of the Oklahoma border Picture Canyon was named for its prehistoric rock art. It is a small canyon with easy slopes, large springs, picnic tables, and a loop hiking trail long. A six mile round-trip hike can be taken by going west from the parking area into the Nort (or Holt) Canyon. On the western side of Picture Canyon is Crack Cave with walls full of rock art. One group of petroglyphs in the cave is illuminated by sunlight for only ten to twelve minutes at sunrise during the Spring and Autumn equinox. The cave is locked except during the equinox
A solar equinox is a moment in time when the Sun crosses the Earth's equator, which is to say, appears directly above the equator, rather than north or south of the equator. On the day of the equinox, the Sun appears to rise "due east" and se ...
es when tours are allowed to visit and view the illuminated petroglyphs.
Carrizo Canyon. A well-watered canyon with rock art, picnic tables, a hiking trail, and fishing for Channel Catfish
The channel catfish (''Ictalurus punctatus'') is North America's most numerous catfish species. It is the official fish of Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Tennessee, and is informally referred to as a "channel cat". In the United States, the ...
in Carrizo Creek.
Cottonwood Canyon One of the best birding areas in Colorado. A campground on private property is at the entrance to the 5-mile long canyon which is bisected by a road and bordered mostly by private property.[accessed Jan 18, 2011]
Campo Lek. The only publicly accessible lesser prairie chicken
The lesser prairie chicken (''Tympanuchus pallidicinctus'') is a species in the grouse family.
Description
It is a medium to large bird, striped white and brown, slightly smaller and paler than its near relative the greater prairie chicken (''T. ...
lek
Lek or LEK may refer to:
* Lek mating, mating in a lek, a type of animal territory in which males of a species gather
* Albanian lek, the currency of Albania
* Lek (magazine), a Norwegian softcore pornographic magazine
* Lek (pharmaceutical comp ...
(display ground) in Colorado. The lek is often closed due to the decline of the prairie chicken population.[
Primitive camping is allowed on all lands of the Comanche National Grassland except for Picketwire Canyon. Hunting is permitted for ]mule deer
The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer.
Unlike the related whit ...
, elk
The elk (''Cervus canadensis''), also known as the wapiti, is one of the largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. The common ...
, pronghorn
The pronghorn (, ) (''Antilocapra americana'') is a species of artiodactyl (even-toed, hoofed) mammal indigenous to interior western and central North America. Though not an antelope, it is known colloquially in North America as the American a ...
, wild turkey
The wild turkey (''Meleagris gallopavo'') is an Upland game bird, upland ground bird native to North America, one of two extant species of Turkey (bird), turkey and the heaviest member of the order Galliformes. It is the ancestor to the domestic ...
, and small game. Colorado state regulations apply.[
]
Gallery
Image:Map of states and counties affected by the Dust Bowl, sourced from US federal government dept. (NRCS SSRA-RAD).svg, Map of states and counties
A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...
affected by the Dust Bowl between 1935 and 1938 originally prepared by the Soil Conservation Service. The most severely affected counties are colored .
See also
* List of protected grasslands of North America
The protected grasslands of North America consist of prairies, with a dominant vegetation type of herbaceous plants like grasses, sedges, and other prairie plants, rather than woody vegetation like trees. This ecosystem was generally dominant wi ...
References
External links
*
Comanche National Grassland
(United States Forest Service)
{{authority control
Grasslands of the North American Great Plains
Protected areas of Baca County, Colorado
Protected areas of Las Animas County, Colorado
National Grasslands of the United States
Protected areas of Otero County, Colorado
Protected areas established in 1960
Eastern Plains
Grasslands of Colorado
1960 establishments in Colombia