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Forty million years ago, magma began pushing up through the earth’s
crust creating explosive volcanoes that formed the mountains we
call the San Juans today. Periods of volcanic activity continued
in this area until ten million years ago. Starting about thirty-five
million years ago, stresses within the crust just east of the San
Juans created the Rio Grande rift causing the ground to uplift into
the magnificent Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The Rio Grande rift
is still active today and the Sangre de Cristos are growing faster
than they are eroding.
The Rio Grande National Forest is so named because the Rio Grande
starts within the Forest’s boundaries. Starting high up in
the alpine tundra of the San Juan Mountains, the Rio Grande tumbles
through the cool spruce and fir subalpine forest. As the river drops
out of the mountains, it passes through the Douglas-fir and the
Ponderosa pine of the montane zone, then the pinon pine and Rocky
Mountain juniper of the foothills zone. Finally, the Rio Grande
winds through the semi-desert and desert landscape of the San Luis
Valley floor.
The SLV Bureau of Land Management lands includes a diversity of
landscapes in the foothills and Valley floor. Zapata Falls carves
through a cliff at the edge of a glacial moraine in the Sangre de
Cristo Mountains. The red walls of Penitente Canyon were carved
out of ash flows within the La Garita caldera of the San Juan Mountains.
And the over two hundred ponds of Blanca Wetlands are the result
of water bubbling up from artesian wells onto the Valley floor.
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Humans came into the upper Rio Grande Basin approximately 11,200
years ago. Clovis, Folsom, and Archaic people all left signs of
their existence throughout the lands of the SLV Public Land Center.
Modern day American Indians arrived about 700 years ago and included
the Ute, Navajo, Apache, Kiowa, Comanche, Arapaho and Pueblo peoples.
The Spanish made forays into what is now Colorado’s San Luis
Valley as early as the 1600s, but they did not establish a permanent
settlement until the 1850s. Anglo Americans began exploring the
San Luis Valley in the early 1800s. During the winter of 1848-49,
John Charles Freemont’s Fourth Expedition attempted to cross
the Rocky Mountains. The expedition became snowbound in the La Garita
Mountains and lost all 120 of their mules. High stumps, skeletal
remains of mules, and artifacts have been found on the Rio Grande
National Forest at what is believed to have been the expedition’s
campsite.
In the late 1800s, miners, ranchers, and loggers worked what are
now the lands of the SLV Public Land Center. Many of the forest
lands came under protection as Timber Reserves in 1905, which later
became the Rio Grande National Forest in 1908. More lands were added
to the Forest over the years and the Rio Grande National Forest
now encompasses over 1.8 million acres.
Even after National Parks, National Forests, and Wildlife Refuges
were established, there were still millions of acres of unappropriated
public lands in the West. The oversight of these lands came under
the jurisdiction of the General Land Office. The San Luis Valley
contained some of these lands, which eventually came under the management
of the Bureau of Land Management in 1946. Today, there are almost
600,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management lands in the San Luis
Valley.
The most recent chapter in the history of the Rio Grande National
Forest and the SLV Bureau of Land Management started in 1996 with
the Service First Initiative. Since the Forest Service and the Bureau
of Land Management have similar missions, the two agencies decided
to share personnel and offices. The initiative was designed to improve
efficiency and provide better customer service. On April 18, 2004,
the Service First Initiative in the San Luis Valley received Washington,
DC approval to become the San Luis Valley Public Land Center. Although
each agency still has its own identity, they are housed in the same
offices, share many personnel, and collaborate often on land management
projects.
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USDA
Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management
