Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-06-22
A COLORADO ROMANCE.
Why the River mt Trinidad Bears
Three Names.

Three Names.
Some queer Kinks in omenclature are
discoverable In this country of ours" said
Col. William Stapleton of Trinidad, Col,
to Star writer. Running right through
the town of Trinidad, In which live, is a
little river, which Familiarity and indis-
criminately does it's muddy, flowing bust
| ness under three names. 1t is called
variously. the Las Animas, the Purgatorio
and the Picket Wire. The names came
about in this way:
"Sante Fe, NM, claims to be and is
about the same age as st. Augustine, Fla.
! Both towns are considerably ever 300 years
old, although 1 forget the exact date of
their settlement.
Back in the middle of the sixteenth CEN
fury the Spaniards at Santa Fee made up a
| Augustine. The old Dons didn't know any
thing of the country which lay between.
All they were posted on was the distance
| and the general direction. as they knew
the latitude AMI longitude OF both places.
Rather late in the fall some 700 of them,
steel-clad soldiers, camp followers. bag
gage train and women, rushed In through
| the Ration Pass over the trail now follow
| ed by the Sante Fee railroad, and at the
| beginning of winter made camp at what
| is now the site of Trinidad, which sits
fairly in the mouth of the Ration canon,
| looking out on the plains.
There they were on the very threshold
of the Rockies. To the east of them, over
which their course must trend, lay an
Utter waste Of plains, apparently without
| limit All that winter the Spaniards camp
ed in the mouth of the Ration canon.
with wine, woman and song, they put in
hilarious time, and probably had as
| much fun as they ever had before or since
Winters are not rigorous and spring comes
early in the vicinity of Trinidad.
with the first coming of the early grass
the Adventures FURNISHED their armor
hai lxy 20
| move. The camp followers, the women
and the extra baggage they sent back to
Santa Fe When last seen the party bound
for St. Augustine numbering several hun
dreds. were marching down the valley of
the little river by which they had camped.
That was the last ever heard of them.
Not feather ever floated back to tell the
story of their fate. With the last flap of
the last banner, and the latest sun-glint on
the rearmost steel cap, they disappeared
from the earth. To this day no one is able
to make a suggestion even as to what be,
came of them, except that it Is supposed
they We're butchered by the Indians.
Fifty years ago there was an old Co.
| manche chief named Iron Shirt, because of
a rusty old shirt of chain mail which he
wore, but neither he nor any of the other
Come inches knew anything of the origin of
| the garment nor where il came from. It
had been in the tribe further back than the
short Comanche memory could reach.
Many have supposed that it was a relic of
this Spanish expedition of three centuries
ago, which had apparently marched OFF the
earth that far-away spring day in the
mouth of the Ration canon.
But now for the kink in nomenclature
was thinking of. The disappearance of
| these Spanish soldiers seemed so eerie and
witchlike that 1t made a profound impress
sion on the superstitious people they had
left behind. They named the little river
Rio de Las Animas, meaning the River of
the Lost Souls, and 1t is supposed to hold
the story of the expeditions dark fate and
| repeat it to itself in the river language,
| which the Mexicans do not pretend to
understand.
when the French fur traders under
Sublette and Saint Vrain came trapping in
those waters from St. Louis, in a French
effort at translation they made out that the
River of the Lost Souls must mean the
Purgatory River. and SO gave the river its
translated name of Purgatorio.
Later, when the American bullwhacker
| marched through on his way to Santa Fe
ne accepted the French name but called II
Picket Wire. To this day the river wears
all three titles, as the reader would soon
| learn by turning to the Trinidad newspa-
pers where he would find cattle brands ad-
vertised as having their ranges variously
on the Las Animas, the Purgatorio and the
Picket Wire.
Every man picks out his name for him
SELF but they all mean the same river 1t
| isn't much of a river. either, only about
twenty feet wide at Trinidad. The Mex
leans, however. loyalty stick to the name
Rio de Las Animas, and Mexican mothers
tell their children of the soldiers who hun
dreds of years ago marched from there and
were never heard of again.