Trinidad—Stonewall—Junction US 160; 66.3 miles, State 12, State 111.

Oil-processed road between Trinidad and Stonewall; graded dirt between Stonewall and La Veta. Limited accommodations.       

This tour traverses the picturesque Stonewall country and affords an opportunity for study of Spanish-American communal life. In the region around Stonewall Gap and Monument Lake are summer houses of many Trinidad residents; trout fishing is good; there is small game hunting in season in all sections outside San Isabel National Forest.

In TRINIDAD, 0 miles (5,999 alt., 11,732 pop.) (see Trinidad), State 12 proceeds westward by way of Robinson Hill. The road passes between low chalk bluffs wooded with cedar; the Purgatoire River (see Tour 12c) lies (L) just beyond a narrow strip of cultivated land.

JANSEN, 2.5 miles (6,085 alt., 30 pop.), a farm community settled in the 1860's, derives its income from garden truck and sugar beets.

West of Jansen the highway follows the northern bank of the Purgatoire River through higher foothill country, covered with a thick growth of juniper and pinon; numerous small farms and truck gardens dot the narrow valley.

At 4.8 miles is the junction with a dirt road.

Left on this road across the Purgatoire; on the hills above the road is (L) PIEDMONT, a former coal camp. Old weather-beaten houses are occupied by a few Spanish-American families.

SOPRIS, 0.7 miles (6,166 alt., 300 pop.), a small coal town founded by E. R. Sopris, pioneer, was originally known as the Sopris Coal Camp, and was at one time the largest producer in Las Animas County. Adobe huts along the road, built during the late 1870's, are occupied by Spanish-American coal miners.

At 6.8 miles is the junction with another dirt road.

Right on this road is COKEDALE, 1 miles (6,350 alt., 500 pop.), founded in 1906 by the American Smelting and Refining Company on land belonging to Sam Thor, whose old adobe house stands at the north end of town. Coke from ovens here is shipped to the smelter at Leadville.

TIJERAS PLAZA (Sp. scissors), 9.5 miles, a small community of adobe huts occupied by Italian and Spanish-American coal miners, was so named because early settlers left the roof poles of their houses projecting beyond the walls in a "V" shape suggestive of scissor blades. A large adobe church (L), dedicated to the Child Jesus of Atocha, was erected in 1874 and is interesting for its unrelieved severity of design. The thick walls are pierced by narrow windows and surmounted with a simple wooden spire crowned with a white cross. An adobe building (R) on a low hill, survival of an experiment of early Spaniards in communal housing, is divided into cubicles, the compartment doorways facing the road. Each apartment was occupied by a member of the family. When a son married, he built his one-room house against the wall of the family dwelling and thus had to erect only three walls instead of four. As the family's children grew up and established their own households, the size of such apartment buildings increased correspondingly. At the western edge of town is (R) an old graveyard, where several piles of small stones, some surmounted with wooden crosses, mark resting places on which coffins were temporarily placed while pallbearers rested.

At 10.9 miles is the junction with a dirt road.

Left on this road, across the Purgatoire, is VALDEZ, 0.5 miles (6,000 alt., 250 pop.); the FREDERICK MINE here, with some 30 miles of underground tunnels, is one of the largest coal mines in southern Colorado. East of the camp several hills of black slag have been burning for years, having been ignited by spontaneous combustion.

SEGUNDO, 12.3 miles (6,220 alt., 600 pop.), on the banks of the Purgatoire, has many dwellings and store buildings constructed of crudely fashioned red clay brick; window frames and doorways are painted bright blue, a color that inhabitants believe keeps the devil away. In the fall, strings of small dried pumpkins and red peppers hang from porch beams.

Right from Segundo on a dirt road to the ghost town of PRIMERO, 1 miles, a flourishing coal camp with a population of 2,000 in 1902. Until 1925, when the town was abandoned, it produced more than 68,000 tons of coal a month. Most of the buildings have been torn down for salvage; only the walls of a church and the concrete bases of the mine tipple remain.

SAN JUAN PLAZA, 12.8 miles, and ZARCILLO PLAZA (Sp. earring), 13.8 miles, are family communities; the latter was named for two large rock formations in ZARCILLO CANYON, 14.3 miles.

VELESQUEZ, 15.1 miles, and MEDINAS PLAZA, 16.2 miles, are likewise family communities; in the latter is GUADALUPE CHURCH (inquire at Velesquez for key), built sometime before 1872 and dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Three generations of the Medinas family live in this settlement.

The highway traverses Purgatoire Valley through luxuriant fields of alfalfa to CORDOVA PLAZA, 17.8 miles, another family community ruled by the white-haired grandfather. It is virtually self-supporting; even the weaving of cloth was done by the women at one time. The MOUNT CARMEL CHURCH (open), built of adobe in 1872, is kept spotlessly clean; linens embroidered by the women of the family cover the altar. A priest comes from Trinidad each Christmas and again on July 16 when the founding of the church is celebrated. On the northern outskirts of the settlement, in an old MEXICAN CEMETERY (L), is a Penitente cross, constructed of poles eight inches in diameter and eight feet long, marking the spot where a Cristo fell while carrying a cross during one of the Good Friday rites of this cult (see Tour 11B).

West of Cordova Plaza the road winds between foothills into a valley largely devoted to stock raising. The wide meadows provide excellent pasturage during summer; alfalfa grown in the irrigated sections is cured for winter feeding.

WESTON, 19.6 miles (6,976 alt., 510 pop.), a hamlet built of wood instead of adobe and named for Sam Weston, pioneer settler, is the center of an extensive lumbering and farming area.

West from Weston is the STONEWALL, a long gray rock barrier stretching across the valley like an enormous dam. Beyond is a striking view of the Culebra range; granite crags and deep fissures sweep down sharply to the forests below. The highest peak in this section of the range is CULEBRA (14,069 alt.), noted for its double peak. To the left of Culebra is RED PEAK (13,600 alt.), prominent with its red sandstone cap.

STONEWALL, 30.1 miles (7,640 alt., 11 pop.), a resort town, was established in 1867 by Juan Guitterez, who grazed cattle in the valley. During the 1880's the settlement was the scene oi many cattle and timber wars, during which grazing and lumbering interests bitterly fought homesteaders. A park here (free campgrounds; cottages) is maintained by the City of Trinidad.

In Stonewall is the junction with State 111, which the route now follows (R) north.

Left from Stonewall on a dirt road across the Middle Fork of the Purgatoire and through high meadow lands to DULING'S LODGE, 1 miles ( meals, rooms, saddle horses).

Right from the lodge 5 miles on wagon road to the junction with a foot trail; R. here 2 miles to LOST LAKE (trout). Far above timberline, its rocky shores fringed with alpine vegetation, kinnikinnick, creeping phlox, and stunted grass, the cold blue waters have never been fathomed.

State 111 passes through STONEWALL GAP, 30.4 miles, a natural opening in the dike that juts up at intervals across the United States from Mexico to Canada. According to geologists, the Stonewall was thrown up by the volcanic action that created the Sangre de Cristo Range, at which time great masses of lava were forced up through crevices in the granite understrata; only in this vicinity does it attain any considerable height; here the eastern face of the wall rises abruptly more than 250 feet high. On the steep dirt slope on the western side, trees, shrubs, and grasses find a precarious foothold. Waters of the Middle Fork of the Purgatoire River pour through the gap.

At 35.8 miles is the junction with State 152, also known as the Whisky Creek Pass Road.

Left on this dirt road over numerous switchbacks to the SUMMIT OF THE CULEBRA RANGE, 12 miles. The road ascends Culebra Mountain through dense forests of aspen, fir, pine, and spruce. Turbulent Whisky Creek is crossed, recrossed, and finally lost as the highway climbs above timberline to the base of the gray granite crags of Culebra's precipitous peaks, reaching an altitude of 12,270 feet. This road, completed in 1937 as a Work Progress Administration project, will be connected with a highway on the other side of the range by a tunnel drilled through the mountain top.

At 36 miles is the junction with a dirt road.

Right on this road to MONUMENT LAKE, 0.5 miles (cabins, dining hall and commissary, dance pavilion; boats; riding horses), named for a monolith rising from its center. Trinidad and Las Animas County maintain a game preserve here for deer and buffalo.

The highway passes CITY HOUSE, 38.4 miles, a pumping station for the Trinidad Waterworks, ascends over hairpin curves to NORTH LAKE, 39.1 miles, part of the Trinidad water system, and crosses the eastern boundary of San Isabel National Forest, 45.1 miles (see Tour 8b). From CUCHARAS PASS (8,500 alt.), 46.5 miles, is a wide view of the towering Sangre de Cristo Range to the north and west, and the massive Spanish Peaks to the northeast. At the northern boundary of San Isabel National Forest, 54 miles, is a view of the huge walls that radiate from the Spanish Peaks like spokes of a wheel. One known as the DEVIL'S STAIR STEPS approaches the highway at this point. State in follows the widening valley of Cucharas Creek. Scrub oak and pinon replace the fir arid pine of the higher mountain region, and wild meadows give way to irrigated fields of lettuce, peas, and alfalfa.

LA VETA (Sp. vein), 63.5 miles (7,024 alt., 782 pop.), is a trading center for neighboring farms. According to an old Aztec legend, the valley in which La Veta lies, at the foot of the Spanish Peaks, was once a Paradise on earth, where no man suffered pain or cold, or was ever unhappy. This blissful state continued until the first Spanish arrived, when the gods of Huajotolla, as the Spanish Peaks were known to the early Indians, became angry and made the valley as other parts of earth.

At 66.3 miles is the junction with US 160 (see Tour 11b), 10 miles west of Walsenburg (6,200 alt., 5,503 pop.) (see Tour 12c).