Down in the Valley: La Junta de los Rios

A site for sore eyes

According to one historian, La Junta–Spanish for ‘the junction’–is where “the Sapello and Mora Rivers unite to exchange gossip brought in from the mountains.”¹ The confluence of these two rivers, as well as the convergence of the Mountain Branch and the Cimarron Branch of the Santa Fe Trail, form the boundaries of this historical landmark.² Located just off Route 85, it is twenty miles north of Las Vegas, New Mexico.

Author Ann Nolan Clark described La Junta in great detail in her 1969 novel These Were The Valiant. She remarked on the healthy, rich soil, the green, lush valley, and extensive wildlife: deer, wild ducks, quail, and antelope. Wild oak, pine, and juniper lined the banks of the river and shaded the town.³ But this area is notable for more than just its looks. La Junta has been a campsite, rest stop, meeting point, and trading area for centuries. Some of its visitors include indigenous tribes, both nomadic and sedentary, and exhausted travelers making the long trek on the Santa Fe Trail. In 1963, La Junta was deemed a National Historic Landmark.

Here First – La Junta’s Early Residents

La Junta was occupied by several indigenous tribes, including the Jicarilla Apaches, the Ute, and the Comanches. According to Spanish records, at the end of the 1600’s, the Jicarilla Apaches had been residing in New Mexico for nearly two centuries.⁴⁵⁶

The Jicarilla Apache tribe had two distinct groups:

• The Olleros (mountain dwellers), who lived in the Cimarron Valley and the mountains of Taos, New Mexico. The Olleros grew corn, squash, and beans, practiced irrigation, and lived in huts and homes with flat roofs, using techniques similar to Pueblo Indians.

• The Llaneros (plains dwellers), who utilized techniques reminiscent of Plains Indians, such as their dress style and their tipis (tent-like structures made of wooden poles and cowhide). The Llaneros were hunters, and nomadic, traveling with dogs who carried their items.⁷

When the Spanish came to New Mexico, however, mistreatment of indigenous people become commonplace. The Jicarilla Apaches, among other tribes, were accused of attacking newcomers, as well as engaging in theft. This narrative of the Jicarilla Apache tribe and other indigenous people being marauders is incorrect. As Veronica Velarde Tiller outlines in her 1976 thesis, “A History of the Jicarilla Apache Tribe,” they were a peaceful people. “This image of Apaches as a predatory race, without the ability to respect other peoples is best treated as a figment of the imagination, or at least greatly exaggerated,” she writes.⁸

Whose Land Is It, Anyway? The Spanish in New Mexico

With the Spanish settling in New Mexico, and then the subsequent Mexican government granting land to settlers, the Jicarilla lost much of their land. The grants effectively “created an elite group of merchants, landholders, and politicians in Northern New Mexico in the heart of Jicarilla land.” ⁹¹⁰ The land of La Junta was granted to a group of ten men in 1843, named after one of the original grant signers, John Scolly.

The Scolly Land Grant

On March 27, 1843, a group of hopeful men composed a petition to the New Mexican governor Manuel Armijo, asking for the rights to ten leagues (about thirty-five miles) of La Junta and the valley surrounding it. In the petition, the author described the La Junta area in great detail, noting its rich soil. He and the men planned to use the area for planting crops, raising sheep, and building mills. They hoped to create a community of hard-working entrepreneurs. The process of obtaining this land proved difficult, however. Though Armijo approved the petition, granting them nearly two year’s time to begin cultivating, the original petitioners did not receive complete ownership of the land until three years later, in May 1846. According to historian F. Stanley, these land grantees did not receive a particularly warm welcome from the indigenous tribes of the area. Reports of theft of livestock and other goods became commonplace. Many of the original petitioners shied away from the project, concerned about theft. The land awarded in the John Scolly Grant was purchased many more times, with two of the most notable buyers include Alexander Barclay and Samuel Watrous.¹¹¹²

“An abode for men and animals”¹³:Barclay’s Fort

On June 11, 1846, Alexander Barclay, a settler who had previously been employed at Bent’s Fort, laid the first adobe brick of Fort Barclay. Barclay had dreamed of building a fort to protect the area. The structure, built in part by hired workers, was described as “an abode for men and animals…formidable” by U.S. Attorney for the Territory of New Mexico, W.W.H. Davis in November 1853.¹⁴ Davis, however, was not pleased with the interior of the fort, noting it was reminiscent of some “old state prison where the good and great of former times have languished away their lives.”² Despite such a scathing review, many travelers of the Santa Fe Trail stopped here to rest, acquire goods and supplies, and escape the elements and potential attacks from indigenous groups.¹⁵ Barclay later attempted to sell the fort to the U.S. Army, but they declined the offer, instead building Fort Union just a few miles away.¹⁶ In 1856, settler William Kroening purchased Fort Barclay.¹⁷ A flood in 1900 washed away all remains of the fort.¹⁸. Barclay’s attempt at altering the landscape of La Junta proved to be unsuccessful. But there was another settler who seemed to be born for the job–Samuel Watrous.

“A New Englander with a thirst for adventure”¹⁹

Samuel Watrous was New-England born man with “untiring energy.”²⁰ According to Alexandra Kosmider’s 1983 thesis, “Samuel B Watrous: New Mexico Pioneer,” a twenty-six-year-old Watrous arrived in Dolores, New Mexico, in 1835. It was in this small mining town that Watrous met his first wife. Together, they had seven children. To support his growing family, Watrous began selling goods to the miners of Dolores, including deerskin, meat, and clothes. Watrous ran his store in Dolores for nearly a decade, eventually saving up enough to purchase his part of the John Scolly Grant in 1849. He and his family then settled in the La Junta valley.²¹

From La Junta to Watrous: A Town Emerges

After Watrous obtained part of the Scolly Land Grant in 1849, he spent no time constructing a twenty-room adobe home, complete with a storefront. ²² Watrous hired Spanish and indigenous workers, including cooks, maids, hunters, and nurses to work in the Watrous home as well as the store.²³ The Watrous house would be deemed “the nucleus of the settlement of La Junta.”²⁴ The Watrous store was successful, in part due to Watrous’ business experience, as well as its proximity to the Santa Fe Trail.²⁵ Eventually, the name of La Junta would be lost, and the area between the Mora and Sapello rivers would be forever known as Watrous.

“Come now, we will plant more trees” ²⁶

In addition to his entrepreneurship, Watrous was a passionate agriculturalist. He planted willows along irrigation ditches, transplanted many cottonwoods, and imported German prune and Richmond cherry trees from Missouri²⁷ Visitors to the area exclaimed that it was “one of the finest orchards of the region.”²⁸ Many of Watrous’ cottonwoods and willows are still thriving today (a quick scroll to the top of this page depicts just that). Watrous was not only skilled at planting trees–through his communication with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, he was partly responsible for the transplant of many indigenous tribes, from their home in La Junta to reservations around New Mexico.

Friend or Foe?

After the Watrous house was constructed, Kosmider suggests that Samuel was on good terms with the indigenous tribes, allowing them to stay on his land and trading goods with them. He also purchased indigenous captives, “taking the young Indian boys and girls to raise with his own family.”²⁹ Clark, too, writes that Watrous was on friendly terms with many indigenous peoples, noting that he “felt a wave of compassion” for them.³⁰ Clark also writes that Watrous spent time visiting with indigenous tribes and learning their spiritual and agricultural practices.³¹ However, the relationship between indigenous tribes and newcomers was a rocky one. Kosmider writes that indigenous peoples “vehemently disapproved of settlers encroaching upon their hunting grounds.”³² Watrous himself spent two decades sending letters to politicians, newspapers, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In 1858, Watrous wrote a letter to the editor of the Santa Fe Gazette that read:

Shall our favorite grazing grounds be forfeited to the marauding Indians? Shall we placidly stand by while they ravage our herds, destroy our grains, murder our people?…I have held my peace, but…it is a drop too much and I bear it no longer in silence.³³

By drafting letters to the Bureau of Indian affairs, newspapers, and politicians with suggestions for solving the “Indian problem”,³⁴constructing a large building, and later the first fencing in the area, Watrous made sure that La Junta was “no longer a wilderness.”³⁵ Samuel Watrous had altered the landscape of the area permanently: the wild valley was no more. Gone was the ability of indigenous peoples to reside in the area. The land was cultivated, foundations and buildings were placed upon it (foundations, that in fact, still exist today), and indigenous tribes were forced onto reservations. The area was on its way to becoming a town.

No longer could an individual stand at his doorstep and watch thundering herds of buffalo… run silhouetted against the mountains, nor could on experience the euphoric sensations of treading a hidden path…now…telegraph poles marched off toward the flat horizon….³⁶

La Junta’s Legacy

Many historians argue that indigenous tribes were often raiding the goods and livestock of the La Junta area. However, it is important to consider their perspective. By the close of the 19th century, the Indigenous peoples of the area were sent to live on reservations.³⁷ The La Junta area was just as significant to these indigenous tribes as it was to settlers like Samuel Watrous, and it would be an oversimplification to suggest that these people were simply marauders or thieves.

Today, La Junta is so small that most drivers on their way to Santa Fe or Colorado might miss it. But perhaps you might take a quick pit stop the next time you go by, to honor the legacy of this little town that was once bustling with life.

Bibliography

• Birchell, Donna Blake. Frontier Forts and Outposts of New Mexico. The History Press, Charleston, 2019.

• Clark, Ann Nolan. “These Were the Traders,” in These Were the Valiant: A Collection of New Mexico Profiles, Albuquerque: Calvin Horn Publisher, Inc, 1969. 36-54

• Fischer, Virginia Lee. “In Search of Jose Watrous.” Wagon Tracks Vol. 12:2 (February 1998).

• Greenwood, Richard. “Watrous (La Junta).” National Register of Historic Places Inventrory/Nomination Form. Watrous, NM: Mora County Courthouse, 1963.

• Kosmider, Alexia M. “Samuel B. Watrous: New Mexico Pioneer” M.A. thesis, University of New Mexico, 1983.

• Myers, Harry C. “The Santa Fe Trail in the Fort Union-Watrous Area.” Wagon Tracks Vol. 3:3 (May 1989), 11-15

• Simmons, Marc. “More on Watrous.” Wagon Tracks Vol. 7:1 (November 1992).

• Stanley, F. The Watrous (New Mexico) Story, (Self- published, Pantex, 1962).

• National Park Service. “Travel the Trail: Map Timeline 1846-1866.” (Accessed 9 Nov. 2019). www.nps.gov/safe/learn/historyculture/map-timeline-2.htm.

• Tiller, Veronica Velarde. “A History of the Jicarilla Apache Tribe” Ph.D Disstertation, University of New Mexico, 1976.

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