Stonewall Gap (also known as Stonewall) is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

and a census-designated place (CDP) located in and governed by Las Animas 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 ...

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. The population of the Stonewall Gap CDP was 66 at the United States Census 2020. The

Weston Weston may refer to: Places Australia * Weston, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb of Canberra * Weston, New South Wales * Weston Creek, a residential district of Canberra * Weston Park, Canberra, a park Canada * Weston, Nova Scotia * W ...

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

( Zip Code 81091) serves the area.

Geography

Stonewall Gap lies along Colorado State Highway 12 at a gap formed by the Middle Fork of the Purgatoire River through the elevation Stonewall Ridge. Highway 12 leads east down the Purgatoire River valley to

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger, more populous island of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the country. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is the southernmost island in ...

, the Las Animas

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 ...

, and north over Cucharas Pass in the

Sangre de Cristo Mountains The Sangre de Cristo Mountains (Spanish language, Spanish for "Blood of Christ") are the southernmost mountain range, subrange of the Rocky Mountains. They are located in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico in the United States. The mountai ...

to La Veta. The Stonewall Gap CDP has an area of , all land.

History

The Stonewall area was originally part of the

Maxwell Land Grant The Maxwell Land Grant, also known as the Beaubien-Miranda Land Grant, was a Land grants in New Mexico and Colorado, Mexican land grant in Colfax County, New Mexico, and part of adjoining Las Animas County, Colorado. This 1841 land grant wa ...

awarded by the government of New Mexico to two Mexican citizens in 1841. The grant area was later owned by foreign investors who created the Maxwell Land Grant Company and attempted to expel the farmers, ranchers, and miners, both

Anglo Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to, or descent from England, English culture, the English people or the English language, such as in the term ''Anglosphere''. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to people of British d ...

s and

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

s, who had settled on lands in the grant. The Stonewall incident in 1888 was the most violent of many incidents in the dispute between the Maxwell Company and the settlers on grant lands. The company had sold of grant land in Colorado to a group of investors including Colorado governor, Alva Adams. The investors intended to develop the land for tourism and sought the immediate eviction of the settlers. A large group of settlers, mostly Hispanics, gathered to protest and surrounded a hotel in Stonewall where the company's employees barricaded themselves. A gunfight ensued in which three of the protesters were shot and killed. In the aftermath several of the protesters were arrested and later convicted of inciting a riot. The

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...

affirmed the ownership of the grant land by the foreign investors and by 1899 most of the original settlers had either been evicted or had come to terms with the company.

Demographics

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 ...

initially defined the for the The population was 67 in 2010 and 66 in 2020.

References

External links

Stonewall @ UncoverColorado.comLas Animas County website
{{authority control Census-designated places in Las Animas County, Colorado Census-designated places in Colorado

Geography

History

Demographics

See also

References

External links