Saguache ( ) is a
Statutory Town
In India, the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), also called municipalities, are self-government institutions responsible for the administration of cities, towns, and transitional areas within a state or Union Territory. The 74th amendment to the Const ...
in and the
county seat
A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...
of
Saguache County,
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...
, United States.
The population was 539 at the
United States Census 2020.
History
Saguache is a small historical village in an agricultural area in southern Colorado at the northern gateway to 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, making it the largest alpine valley in the world. It extends from the Continental Divide on ...
, a valley between the
Sangre de Cristo Range
The Sangre de Cristo Range is a mountain range in the Rocky Mountains in southern Colorado in the United States, running north and south along the east side of the Rio Grande Rift. The mountains extend southeast from Poncha Pass for about thr ...
on the east and the
San Juan Mountains
The San Juan Mountains is a high and rugged mountain range in the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico. The area is highly mineralized (the Colorado Mineral Belt) and figured in the gold and silver mining industry ...
to the west.
Saguache Creek flows through the town from its beginnings high in the San Juan mountains. The site has been known for centuries to Native Americans who moved down from their summer homes in the mountains to the valley during the winter months. The Spanish began to move into the area in the 1600s and Spanish sheepherders passed through each year as they drove their flocks into the hills for summer grazing. Later the early white settlers and miners passed through this area, many seeking passage west along the
Old Spanish Trail. In the mid-1860s, the first permanent white settlements were established in Saguache and the nearby town of
Villa Grove. Saguache County was officially founded in 1866.
The formation of the town was influenced by the occupations and needs of the era. Beginning as a trading post, in the late 1800s mining became a significant influence as the Colorado mining boom brought hundreds of mining operations to the surrounding mountains and the miners needed a steady supply of food and other goods.
[Discover Saguache County – Home]
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The town was founded by Otto Mears
Otto Mears (May 3, 1840 – June 24, 1931) was a Colorado railroad builder and entrepreneur who played a major role in the early development of southwestern Colorado.
Mears was known as the "Pathfinder of the San Juans" because of his roa ...
, who came to Saguache in 1867. Mears constructed a wheat thresher and a grist mill
A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that h ...
for thrashing and grinding wheat to make flour to supply Saguache and the surrounding mines. He also built toll roads over the nearby mountain passes to use for hauling supplies to mining camps to the north, and to further open the area to settlement. The Saguache Town Company was formed in 1874 turning Saguache into a booming supply town. Mears also established a newspaper, the Saguache Chronicle, to attract pioneers to Saguache. Mears later helped build the Million Dollar Highway.
Today
From its early days as a boom town, the population of Saguache has shrunk to around 500 residents. The Saguache visitor guide writes that "In its heyday, Saguache could boast of having the Colorado Hall (serving the purest wines and liquors), the Saguache Meat Market, a boarding house, a grocery, law firms, a hardware store, a hotel, a sawmill, and ''The Saguache Chronicle'' newspaper." After several name changes, ''The Saguache Chronicle'' eventually became ''The Saguache Crescent
''The Saguache Crescent'' (pronounced ) is a weekly newspaper published in Saguache, Colorado, notable for continuing to use a linotype machine, Linotype to produce each issue long after most newspapers have adopted electronic production methods ...
''. The paper is printed every week on a flatbed press built in 1915 with metal type cast on a Linotype composing machine. The Linotype may be the only one still in use in the United States. It is also still the county's "paper of record," and is operated by a third generation descendant of the family who purchased it in 1917.
The early sheep ranching eventually gave way to cattle and alfalfa hay production. Present-day Saguache has "one school, a library, a museum, four churches, two gas stations, one liquor store, two grocery stores, two restaurants, a sawmill, and an organic farm."
Name
According to a 2013 ''Denver Post'' article entitled, "What's in a Colorado name pronunciation?", the name ''Saguache'' (pronounced ) comes from a Ute language
Ute ( )Givón, T. ''Ute Reference Grammar''. John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2011 is a dialect of the Colorado River Numic language, spoken by the Ute people. Speakers primarily live on three reservations: Uintah-Ouray (or Northern Ute) in ...
word meaning "sand dune". A Native American, Naranjo, explains the history of the name: "The Utes don't have an alphabet. The way the immigrants heard it, the way you hear it, is how they spelled it. The word is 'sə wŭp;' it means 'sand dunes.' But the immigrants couldn't pronounce it, so they called it 'sə wäch.' "
But according to a 1995 letter to the editor of the ''Colorado Central Magazine'', the name Saguache means "Blue earth — water at the blue earth." The writer had written to correct an article in which the word was said to mean "green place", but according to the writer, the word comes from a shortened form of the Ute language
Ute ( )Givón, T. ''Ute Reference Grammar''. John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2011 is a dialect of the Colorado River Numic language, spoken by the Ute people. Speakers primarily live on three reservations: Uintah-Ouray (or Northern Ute) in ...
word "Saguaguachipa." The Ute tribe encampments were common in the area around the present-day community and the name "referred to springs in which blue earth was said to be found to the north". The Editors replied: "The Ute Dictionary, published in 1977 by the Southern Ute Indian Tribe of Ignacio, Colo., defines "sagwa-ci" iacritical marks omittedas "'Saguache', lit. 'green place'; name of a town in the San Luis Valley in So. Colorado ..."[What does ‘Saguache’ mean? , Colorado Central Magazine , Colorado news, stories, essays, history and more!]
/ref> One source states that the "blue earth" mentioned refers to a deposit of blue clay found near the creek.
The Colorado State Historical Society has a different take on the meaning: The note on a community monument: Saguache, "the name derived from the Indian word `Blue Water'."
The Spanish language
Spanish () or Castilian () is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a world language, gl ...
version of this name is usually spelled "Saguache", while the English language
English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...
version is usually spelled "Sawatch".
Geography
Saguache is served by U.S. Route 285 and Colorado State Highway 114. Saguache Creek flows past to the southwest of the community.
According to the United States Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...
, the town has a total area of , all of it land.
Demographics
Attractions and recreation
As the gateway to the San Juan Mountains
The San Juan Mountains is a high and rugged mountain range in the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Colorado and northwestern New Mexico. The area is highly mineralized (the Colorado Mineral Belt) and figured in the gold and silver mining industry ...
, home to the Rio Grande National Forest
Rio Grande National Forest is a 1.86 million-acre (7,530 km2) U.S. National Forest located in southwestern Colorado. The forest encompasses the San Luis Valley, which is the world's largest agricultural alpine valley, as well as one of t ...
and the La Garita Wilderness Area, Saguache offers outdoor activities such as sightseeing, cycling, hiking and camping. Highway 114 to Cochetopa Pass follows the original Old Spanish Trail, offering high country scenery and access to large tracts of public lands.
Saguache has a small museum. According to the information they provide:
In a tribute to our forebears and in keeping with the work ethic embedded from our agricultural heritage, this Museum has won acclaim from visitors all over the United States, and many foreign countries.A Tour of the Saguache County Museum
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The museum provides information related to convicted cannibal Alferd Packer, who served time in the Saguache County Jail. On February 9, 1874, Alferd Packer and five other men departed from the camp of Ute Chief Ouray
Ouray (, c. 1833 – August 20, 1880) was a Native Americans in the United States, Native American Tribal chief, chief of the Ute people#Northern Ute Tribe (Uinta Utes), Tabeguache (Uncompahgre) band of the Ute Tribe, Ute tribe, then located in we ...
, near what is now Montrose, Colorado
Montrose is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Montrose County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 20,291 at the 2020 census, within a total area of 18.5 square miles. The m ...
, prospecting for gold. The party was soon stranded in a blizzard near Lake City and nothing was seen of them until April, when Packer came out of the mountains alone. Packer gave several conflicting stories about the fate of the other men, but finding his stories dubious he was jailed in Saguache where he remained until August, when he escaped. By coincidence, on the day of Packer's escape from the Saguache jail, the remains of the missing prospectors were found with evidence of foul play and cannibalism. He was eventually found in Wyoming; he was returned and tried in Lake City. Found guilty, he was sentenced to 40 years and was paroled after serving 17. He died in 1907 and by all accounts had been "a model citizen" for his remaining years.
Due to the nature of the crime, at the time it was sensationalized and well-covered throughout the nation, and it remains a well-known incident locally in Colorado. The area where the bodies were discovered is now known as Cannibal Plateau.
Packer is remembered in Lake City by holding an annual Alferd Packer Jeep Tour and Barbecue.[ The cafeteria in the University of Colorado, Boulder, student union is called the Alferd Packer Memorial Grill.][
The museum displays a figure of Packer sitting in a cell with the sheriff guarding the prisoner from his chair in his office. On display are handcuffs, leg irons and other items relating to the history of Alfred Packer.][
]
See also
* Old Spanish National Historic Trail
* 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, making it the largest alpine valley in the world. It extends from the Continental Divide on ...
References
External links
*
Saguache airport
{{authority control
Towns in Saguache County, Colorado
Towns in Colorado
Colorado placenames of Native American origin
County seats in Colorado