Santa Fe daily New Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1885-1897, 1892-11-19
FRUITFUL SAN JUAN.
The Past, Present and Future of a
Magnificent Empire in North
west New Mexico.
A Rich and Inviting Region-Abund-
anoe of Water, Fine Farms and
Orchards--A Hospitable
People.

OFF in the extreme northwest corner of
New Mexico, three days journey from
although only 100 odd miles
from Santa Fe, lies the fruitful county
Of San Juan. In country where water
is more valuable than gold, it is blessed
with superabundance of the precious
fluid, and its soil so combines the min
eral salts that its fruits have a color and
favor seldom equalled. The only fault
to find with it is its limited extent of
tillable land as probably not more than
100000 acres of its area are arabic. II is
to Americans shat new land which was
the old" Here, as the Navajoes and
Utes tell us, eight old men ages ago, there
dwelt race, populous and industrious.
MIGHTY RUINS OF PUEBLos,
three, four and five stories high, still re-
main to tell of their multitude; and high
line irrigation canals, skirting steep and
difficult bluffs assure us that they had
attained no mean knowledge of engineer
ing. On the land of Capt. John A.
Koontz stands
AN IMMENSE HOUSE
four stories high. There are 1871 large
rooms on the ground floor, and the
building, when complete, must have
accommodated at least 1000 people;
while not far away on the site of Aztec,
the county seat, the foundations of more
than forty similar but smaller structures
are to be traced, and all this is not a
tithe of what once we're homes for this
ancient and forgotten nation. OFF in the
hills again are numerous
CLIFF DWELLINGS,,
in which these people, fleeing from the
war-like Navaioes, Apaches and Utes
took refuge. 1t is no part of this article
to enter into discussion of their origin;
but the fact they we're violently extermn-
ated, both in the pueblos and cliffs is SO
apparent that the writer is forced to the
conclusion that the cliff dwellers gener-
ally considered an ethnically distinct type
were only the remnants of the people who
once titled the mesas and valleys of the
great southwest
THE PRESENT POPULATION
is no less interesting, composed as 1T is
of the frontier types. Ore man you meet
tired of the bleak north, left the state Of
Maine at 12 years of age in whaler to
enl , la,d ,,,boro oroprau rrarp op5 epppi
three years in the Arctic, then successfully
served in the French, Austrian, English
and American navies. Another has fol
lowed the frontier from the Missouri
river to New Mexico, always moving on
as civilization crowded him. Then there
are the remnants of the cowboys
who herded the tens of thousands of cat
tie that roamed these valleys from 1875
to 1SS7-the palmy days of the COW
puncher. The miners who prospecteG
tho hills, and stern old Indian fighters
also give their own tone to the popula
ton. Indeed, the romance of to-day il
no less interesting than that of yesterday
There have been fierce battles for su
premacy here among the different Amer
lean interests; and the wild and daring
deeds of the "Farmington War;" which
ragged for nearly two years, would furnish
both epic and dime novel with plenty o
material. On the La Plata river, as lat
as 1881, the
UTEs CLAIMED POSSESSION
of the soil; but the land-hungry whit
man coveted it, and in the spring Of tina
year plowed the Indians crop out of tn
ground and took up his home. Th
Indian disputed this summary pro
ceeding, and cavalry detachmen
came to settle the controversy, with tn
result that the settlers stood firm in pos
session and the Utes got out. Othe
white men hearing of this sought to turl
the valley into sheep range and quietl
put in $4,000 sheep; but the sturdy plo
neers solved this difficulty by the eas,
method of rounding up all the hocks
thoroughly mixing them and driving tn
immense herd beyond the county line
where it took the owners two months t.
separate them. Scenes of this sort, how
ever, are gone with the wild life that col
ored them. The people of San Jua
county to-day present composite pic
ture of the various tincturing elements.
THE PHYSICAL FEATURES
of the county are all beautiful. 1t
rugged hills sloping up to the Cont
mental Divide feed its three rivers: the Sa
Juan, Animas and La Plata. The tw
first are perennial, the latter is affected b,
the droughts. The usual entrance to tn
county is through the Animas valley, t.
Aztec the county seat Then the travele
wends down the stream to its junction
with the San Juan, which few mile
further on is Joined by the La Plata
Below this short distance is the
COOLIDGE MESA,
watered from the San Juan by the bes
ditch in the county, constructed by Nj
Frank Coolidge. From this point tn
view surpasses description. Away to tb
southeast tower the Angel rocks, whic
like guardian spirits overlook the lan'