Valles Caldera - History

History

Use of the Valles Caldera dates back to the prehistoric times: spear points dating to 11,000 years ago have been discovered. Several Native American tribes frequented the Caldera, often seasonally for hunting and for obsidian used for spear and arrow points. Obsidian from the Caldera was traded by tribes across much of the Southwest. Eventually, Spanish and later Mexican settlers as well as the Navajo and other tribes came to the caldera seasonally for grazing with periodic clashes and raids. Later as the United States acquired New Mexico as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the Caldera became the backdrop for the Indian wars with the U.S Army, and the caldera began to be used for commercial purposes such as ranching and logging. During this period, the caldera became part of the Baca Ranch in 1876. The Bacas were a wealthy family given the land as compensation for the termination of a grant given to their family near Las Vegas, in northeastern New Mexico. The family was given several other parcels by the US Government as well, including one in Arizona. This area, 100,000 acres, was called Baca Location number one. Since then, the land has been through a string of exchanges between private owners and business enterprises. Most notably, it was owned by Frank Bond in the 1930s. Mr. Bond, a businessman based in nearby Espanola, ran up to 30,000 sheep in the calderas, significantly overgrazing the land and causing damage from which the watersheds of the property is still recovering. The land was purchased by the Dunigan family from Abilene, Texas in 1963. Pat Dunigan did not obtain the timber rights, however, and the New Mexico Lumber Company logged the property very heavily, leaving the land scarred with roads and removing significant amounts of old-growth douglas fir and ponderosa pine. Mr. Dunigan bought out the timber rights in the 1970s and slowed the logging. He negotiated unsuccessfully with the National Park Service and the US Forest Service for possible sale of the property in the 1980s. In 2000, the Dunigan family sold the entire surface estate of 95,000 acres (380 km2) and seven-eighths of the geothermal mineral estate to the federal government. Santa Clara Pueblo, which borders the property to the northeast, obtained 5,000 acres (2,000 ha) of the old Baca Ranch as part of the public purchase.