5 sites added to Colorado’s Most Endangered Places list
Crumbling church, potato cellars, fire museum included
A crumbling 90-year-old church that retains timeless beauty despite its state of disrepair. The ruins of a remote mansion built by a 19th century Colorado governor. A market that predates the birth of Denver and is the oldest continuously operated business in the state.
These are just some of the sites that were added to the list of Colorado’s Most Endangered Places last week by Colorado Preservation, Inc., an organization that has worked with communities around the state since 1997 to save historic structures and archaeological sites.
So here’s an idea for a road trip: Tour the newly added five sites. It could make for an intriguing journey through our state’s rich history, and all can be visited on a swing through southern Colorado.
“The whole program is really to raise awareness about the threats to the sites and the condition they’re in and to try and rally support,” said Kim Grant, director of CPI’S Endangered Places Program. “We work with local organizations to build their capacity to do fundraising, and we help them with some of that. Sometimes we help them write grants and get grants.”
There are more than 120 sites on CPI lists, including 47 that are considered “saved” and 44 “in progress” of preservation. CPI has 25 on an “alert” list (meaning they are considered endangered), including the five added last week.
“People have emotional connections to these sites,” Grant
said. “There are great stories behind them, and they’re really tangible reflections of our past, and of the people who came here and settled and built Colorado. At the same time, I think people need something like that to hold on to, because change happens so fast in our society. These are the places that give our communities their identity and their distinction and their character. In a world that seems like it’s getting increasingly homogenized, it’s nice to have these places that are a reflection of the past.”
Here, then, is a look at the new sites on the list, as seen through the eyes of people who love them: Iglesia de San Antonio, La Plata County: This
small church at the former settlement of Tiffany was built in 1928. The caretaker, Margaret Lucero, remembers worshiping there when she was a girl. Later, her parents and another couple made adobe out of straw and mud to stucco holes in the interior and exterior of the church. That was 40 years ago.
It needs help again. The exterior stucco is deterio- Lucero said, and some of the windows have been broken by the wind. Doors are weather-worn and the rectory is separating from the main chamber of the church.
“The interior is still pretty much there, but on the corners it’s falling apart,” said Lucero,
61. “You go to clean it and the adobe is crumbling. The wood is very, very sturdy. But inside, but you can see where everything is falling apart.”
Regular services are no longer held there, but once a year there is a special mass within a few days of the feast day of St. Anthony (June 13), and it’s set this year for June 9. A priest from nearby Ignacio will come to say mass, which will be followed by a pot luck dinner at Lucero’s house. Last year, more than 80 people attended.
Lucero’s “ultimate goal” is for the church to be repaired and turned into an adoration chapel.
“It’s a little gem, and it just is special to me,” Lucero said. “I’m sure it’s special to everyone who’s been involved with it.”
Visitors are welcome to call Lucero at 505-7936809 for more information. R&R Market in San Luis, Costilla County: When Dario Gallegos started his mercantile business in 1857, it was in a small building with 25-inch adobe walls. The foundation was made of rock with mud mortar. It’s been renamed a few times, but remains Colorado’s oldest continuously operrating, ated business. The building was expanded over the years to include hotel rooms and now stands as a two-story log and stucco building. The rooms upstairs are for rent.
One room is the home of Felix Romero, a descendant of Gallegos, along with his wife. Romero has been the owner since 1969, with his brother Claudio. The R&R Market is a general store selling groceries, hardware and other items. There are four fulltime employees and two part-timers.
Local residents would have a long way to drive for groceries if not for Romero’s store.
“The time just went by for me,” said Romero, 72. ”It’s only the last few years that I’m starting to get older and tired that I felt it a little. This business has just been real rewarding, because you feel like you’re accomplishing something every day, trying new things every day, meeting new people every day. I don’t go looking for customers, they come here. This is an institution. This is where they come to socialize with families and friends.”
The R&R Market is open seven days a week, although only for two hours on Sundays. That’s because locals asked Romero to open the store on Sundays so they could stop by after church, and he obliged.
“I catch all the afterchurch crowds,” Romero said. “After church, sometimes I make in those two hours what I make in a day during the week.” Mcintire Ranch and Mansion, Conejos County: When Albert and Florence Mcintire moved here from the East Coast and started a ranch in 1880, they combined Eastern architectural influences with traditional adobe construction. Albert became a county and district judge before serving as Colorado governor (18951897). When he had to move to Denver for work, Florence didn’t want to go with him, so she remained on the ranch, divorcing him in 1898. She managed the ranch until she died in 1912.
Now the site is a ruins. “It’s remnants of what was the mansion,” said Rio de la Vista, an expert on the site. “It’s cool, because in the corner you’ll see the plaster, the really nice wooden trim molding they put in, beautiful brick frames over the windows, just features you wouldn’t attribute to the conventional adobe construction at that time. This was a fancy place.”
When the Mcintires built the ranch, the area was thriving because it was located near the confluence of the Conejos River with the Rio Grande. There was a ferry nearby to cross the Rio Grande, which was important, because in those days there were no bridges in the area. Now it’s remote and wild, adjacent to the Rio Grande Natural Area, and that is part of its charm.
“The ranch is an extraordinary property on the Conejos River, owned by the BLM,” de la Vista said. “They acquired it because there is a spring there. It’s a warm-water spring, so it never freezes. It came into their ownership because of the phenomenal wildlife habitat. I’ve been out there in the winter, and you will see 40 bald eagles in a day. It’s just an extraordinary sight.”
The site is inaccessible by car but can be reached via a hike of a couple miles. It’s near Pike’s Stockade, a National Historic Landmark at the
small town of Sanford where explorer Zebulon Pike raised the American flag in 1807.
Visitors can call de la Vista at 719-850-2255 for directions. Adobe Potato Cellars of the San Luis Valley (f ivecounty region): Strewn across the San Luis Valley are potato cellars that were built in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They were designed to keep the interiors cool in the summer and warm in the winter, with humidity conducive to storing potatoes in a region that has long been known for growing them. About 90 percent of Colorado’s current potato production comes from there.
There may be as many as 100 of them, and many were still in use midway through the last century. They can be found in Alamosa, Conejos, Costilla, Rio Grande and Saguache counties.
“They’re just beautiful structures,” said de la Vista. “The construction had two layers of adobe wall with an air space in between, which allowed them to serve as potato cellars because they needed to modulate the temperature inside and the moisture levels. The modern ones, a lot of them are big steel buildings with electrically monitored fans and moisture sensors to maintain the conditions for potato storage. They didn’t have all that technology when these barns were built, but they grew a lot of potatoes, so they figured out how to make
that work with the construction of these adobe buildings.”
Visitors can get more information by contacting the Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area at info@sdcnha.org or by calling 719-580-7366. Hose Company No. 3 Fire Museum, Pueblo: On
your way to the sites already mentioned, consider a stop at this firehouse built in 1895. It operated until 1978, when it was turned into a firefighters museum. It has a lot of artifacts, including a hand-pulled hose cart dating to 1882.
The exterior of limestone, brick and stucco needs some work.
“It’s an original firehouse that hasn’t been transformed in any way,” said Mark Pickerel, a Pueblo firefighter whose father served the fire department there for 29 years, part of that time at the No. 3 before it was taken out of service and replaced by a modern facility. “I remember going there as a little kid when he worked there. The city owns the building, but kind of let the outside fall into disrepair. We’ve got a phenomenal array of artifacts that we display from Pueblo’s history.”
The museum is located at 116 Broadway Ave., Pueblo, hosecono3.com.
To see an interactive map of the newly added sites and more, go to coloradopreservation.org.