The Conejos River is a tributary of the

Rio Grande The Rio Grande ( and ), known in Mexico as the Río Bravo del Norte or simply the Río Bravo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The length of the Rio G ...

, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
, accessed March 31, 2011 in south-central

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 ...

in the United States. It drains a scenic area of the eastern San Juan Mountains west of the

San Luis Valley The San Luis Valley is a region in south-central Colorado with a small portion overlapping into New Mexico. The valley is approximately long and wide, extending from the Continental Divide on the northwest rim into New Mexico on the south. It co ...

Description

It rises from snowmelt along the

continental divide A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not ...

west of

Conejos Peak Conejos Peak is a high and prominent mountain summit in the southern San Juan Mountains of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The thirteener is located in the South San Juan Wilderness of Rio Grande National Forest, north-northwest ( bea ...

in western

Conejos County Conejos County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 7,461. The county seat is the unincorporated community of Conejos. Being 50.7% Hispanic in 2020, Conejos was Colorado's largest Hispa ...

, approximately northeast of

Pagosa Springs The Town of Pagosa Springs (Ute language: Pagwöösa, Navajo language: Tó Sido Háálį́) is a home rule municipality that is the county seat, the most populous community, and the only incorporated municipality in Archuleta County, Colorado, ...

. It flows briefly northeast, through

Platoro Reservoir Platoro Dam (National ID # CO82911) is a dam in Conejos County, Colorado. The earthen dam was constructed between 1949 and 1951 by the United States Bureau of Reclamation with a height of , and long at its crest. It impounds the Conejos River, ...

, then southeast through the Rio Grande National Forest, then east along the

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...

border through a scenic canyon. It enters the southwestern corner of the San Luis Valley from the west near Conejos and joins the Rio Grande from the west approximately 15 mi (24 km) southeast of Alamosa. It is impounded at Platoro Reservoir for

flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

control and to manage

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow Crop, crops, Landscape plant, landscape plants, and Lawn, lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,00 ...

in the San Luis Valley, as part of the San Luis Valley Project of the

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

. The river is wide and shallow along much of its course. It descends steeply in several areas, including at Pinnacle Canyon, a popular destination for whitewater rafting. Off limits to white settlement during the

New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Am ...

years, the river was the site of early land grants to settlers from the government of

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

in the 1830s. The first settlement of 50 families along the river, in the

Guadalupe Grant Guadalupe or Guadeloupe may refer to: Places Bolivia * Guadalupe, Potosí Brazil * Guadalupe, Piauí, a municipality in the state of Piauí * Guadalupe, Rio de Janeiro, a neighbourhood in the city of Rio de Janeiro Colombia * Guadalupe, A ...

in 1833, was destroyed in an attack by Native Americans.

José Jacques José is a predominantly Spanish and Portuguese form of the given name Joseph. While spelled alike, this name is pronounced differently in each language: Spanish ; Portuguese (or ). In French, the name ''José'', pronounced , is an old vernacul ...

established the first white settlement on the river in 1851. The town of Conejos was founded in the 1854 by Lafayette Head, who later became the first lieutenant governor of Colorado.

References

External links

USGR: San Luis Valley Project
{{authority control Tributaries of the Rio Grande Rivers of Colorado Rivers of Conejos County, Colorado San Juan Mountains (Colorado) San Luis Valley of Colorado

Description

See also

References

External links