Following 19th-Century Ute Trails
From Pueblo, Colorado, to Price, Utah.
By: Candy Moulton 08/01/2007
In one of his first acts as agent, Meeker relocated the White River Agency to a place known as Powell Meadow or Powell Bottom, named for Colorado River explorer John Wesley Powell. Meeker paid little heed to the fact that it was the area where the Utes grazed their horses and where they had a track for horse racing events. He started plowing the meadow in anticipation of planting crops. As if that wasn’t enough, he angered the Utes even more by suggesting they had too many horses and ought to kill some of them.
Meeker’s agrarian aims would fuel one of the West’s most violent Indian uprisings protesting reservation life.
No More Blue Sky
The Utes once roamed across most of Colorado and Utah, with some spending time in New Mexico, Arizona and Wyoming.
Known as Yutas, Utahs and Blue Sky People, the collective nation had divided into seven distinct bands by the late 1700s. The Utes raided into lands surrounding their homes, skirmishing with the other tribes. Yet they had few conflicts with outsiders.
The Uintah primarily lived in Utah’s Uintah Basin. The Yampa Utes occupied lands in the Yampa River Valley of northwest Colorado, while the Grand Utes made their homes along the Grand (later known as the Colorado) River. These bands became known as the Whiteriver Utes and along with the Uintah and Uncompahgre (formerly Tabeguache) bands, they make up the Northern Utes, who now live on the Uintah and Ouray Reservation in northeastern Utah, headquartered at Fort Duchesne.
The Capote and Mouache Utes lived in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, north central New Mexico and the Eastern Slope of Colorado, occasionally traveling and living as far south as Santa Fe. The Weeminuche Utes had territory in southwest Colorado along the San Juan, Las Animas, Mancos and La Plata river valleys. Those three bands, Capote, Mouache and Weeminuche (Ute Mountain Utes), comprise the Southern Ute nation with a reservation in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico, headquartered at Towaoc, Colorado.
By 1854, the Utes had recognized a graver enemy encroaching their territory. That year, the eastern bands participated in a raid on the new settlement at Pueblo, where we will begin our trip across some of the traditional Ute lands.
At the River’s Bend
In Pueblo, Colorado, I visit the re-created El Pueblo, an early trading center. The El Pueblo History Museum shares the story of the Ute raid in 1854 that drove out the original settlers. I stroll along the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk, once a lively scene of traders exchanging goods, and enjoy its park-like setting and tour boats on the river.
From Pueblo, my route is west along highway 50 through Canon City, where the road parallels the Arkansas River and skirts along the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas, a defile cut by eons of cascading water. The Royal Gorge is a thousand-foot canyon that can be viewed from above on the Royal Gorge Bridge, or from below by taking a ride on the Royal Gorge Railroad. But I stay on U.S. 50 to Salida and Poncha Springs, and then turn southwest along U.S. 285 to the small town of Saguache.
Post A Comment