By Owen Woods | owen@alamosacitizen.com
THERE’S a seamless connection between Colorado and New Mexico. It’s a passageway that’s almost outside of time. It’s a place you might think is taken straight from a geology textbook as a prime example of some ancient wonder of the old world. The history of this place is just as present and grand as the mountains.
That’s likely why the San Luis Valley has two congressionally-designated National Heritage Areas: the Sangre De Cristo National Heritage Area, here in Colorado, and the Northern Rio Grande National Heritage Area, in New Mexico. These two areas border one another and encompass a total of 13,000 square miles and somewhere around 12,000 years of human history.
Congress in December maneuvered money from the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill into reauthorizing a number of national heritage areas. With the lobbying help of the Alliance of National Heritage Areas and undying on-the-ground support here in the Valley, these two places of immense cultural importance have funding until 2036.
The power of the Valley vecino is unmatched.
The SDCNHA and the NRGNHA are neighbors, but to call us neighbors isn’t quite accurate. They are sister heritage areas separated by a state line.
Perhaps, conjoined twins is a better way to explain it.
At one point or another, says Julie Chacon, SDCNHA’s executive director, “Everybody has crossed these lands.”
The history, the water, and the people who have traveled up and down the Valley, along the Rio Grande, over the Sangre de Cristo or San Juan Mountains, into and out of New Mexico, have never been troubled with the imaginary, government-surveyed line.
The Rio Grande, to no surprise, is really the keystone and the bedrock of life here in the Valley.
If you were to look at the Valley, from say, the International Space Station, you could follow the meandering oxbows of the river all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.
From up there, it would be one big bowl filled with centuries of human history. Rather than a bowl, you might look at the San Luis Valley as a cradle. A bassinet that has rocked and swayed a very unique piece of human history around the sun for a very long time. That’s why the Valley, on both sides of the state line, has been referred to as the “Cradle of Civilization.”
You would also see the crossing highways, leading out in every direction. It’s why it’s also been deemed the “Crossroads of the Centuries.” First it was the animals, then the hunter-gatherers who followed them, then came the Spaniards and Mexicans, then it was the Anglo cartographers and soldiers, then the rails and the roads. The highways that follow the cardinal directions out of this place are the result of perhaps thousands of years of travel.
At one point or another, said Julie Chacon, SDCNHA’s executive director, “Everybody has crossed these lands.”
The San Luis Valley, both on the Colorado side and the Northern New Mexico side, has a rich history that is far too dense to pack into one piece of writing, or even one textbook. That’s why Chacon says “we go into the weeds.” She says there’s history in the Valley that just isn’t in textbooks. And that kind of history, the stuff they don’t teach you in schools, is part of the heritage area’s mission.
That rich culture and long history of the San Luis Valley, some of its pieces of evidence withered away with time and wind, is something that needs to be preserved. In the 1980s, the federal government created a program through the National Parks Service to do just that.
National Heritage Areas are “places where historic, cultural, and natural resources combine to form cohesive, nationally important landscapes.” Each of the 62 heritage areas in the United States has “a unique contribution to the American experience.”
With a name like “The Cradle of Civilization,” there’s an argument to be made that the San Luis Valley has a unique contribution to not just the American experience, but the Human experience.
“There’s just such a strong link between those two communities.
We’re kind of one big heritage area except we have a state line that separates us. We’re really sister heritage areas.”
– Anna Hansen, NRGNHA president
AFTER a nail-biter of a legislative session, where the future of these two national heritage areas hung in the balance of the $1.7 trillion funding bill, Congress took a last-minute vote to approve continuation of these two heritage areas, among others, for another 15 years.
“To get a bill through congress, a standalone bill in the last week of the 117th Congress is like, against all odds,” said Anna Hansen, NRGNHA’s president. “It’s a miracle. It was like a Christmas miracle for all of us.”
Hansen says that having a congressional stamp is just one more way that heritage areas can secure more funding and credibility.
Always thinking 15 years ahead is how Chacon stays on top of it all. She says she’s already preparing for that day.
Reauthorization isn’t something that can be done alone. Even though National Heritage Areas is a government program, each is run by a board of directors who fulfill their own missions. They are representatives from within the heritage areas.
More stories about Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area
“We’re so close,” Hansen said. “Many of us in New Mexico actually believe that part of Southern Colorado should really be in New Mexico. … There’s just such a strong link between those two communities.”
Hansen says that the SDCNHA and NRGNHA are in “harmony” with one another. “We’re kind of one big heritage area except we have a state line that separates us. We’re really sister heritage areas.”
Chacon used to travel to Santa Fe just about every Friday to help the former NRGNHA executive director, Tomás Romero, with administrative work and to just help him “catch up.”
Romero passed away in 2022, leaving a very large hole to fill. However, with his passing, it only increased the bond between the two areas. The help and expertise from the Colorado side was not just a tool, but another piece of the machine.
While separated by two different state governments, these two heritage areas are looking beyond that. They have focused on the grander picture, and realized that if red tape is all you see, a friend with a pair of scissors isn’t too far away.
While Congress moved items in and out of the giant omnibus bill, it created unease. Then, at the final hour, the approval came down. It had everyone on tenterhooks.
With the weight off their shoulders, the work can continue. Hansen highlighted a few projects happening in her neck of the woods. First, they are applying for a Department of Cultural Affairs of New Mexico grant that would help restore historic places throughout the area, including an economic development project in Los Luceros and an Espanola Plaza fountain restoration project funded through a T-Mobile grant.
“There’s things that we can do that are a direct benefit for the community that they can actually see and say, ‘Oh, the heritage area helped us bring in this money to restore our fountain, they helped us restore the wall that was falling down.’ There’s so many issues with buildings in Northern New Mexico that need repair that are historic structures.”
The Rio Grande is the keystone and the bedrock of life in the Valley. The meandering oxbows of the river flow all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, through centuries of human history
IT’S not just about the preservation of physical history, but the preservation of the culture, language, and information. Chacon says a goal of the SDCNHA is to really educate people, to help them “learn your history” and “learn how to educate it to others.”
Chacon said a unique part of the Valley’s history is the Native American and Hispano and Anglo cultures and traditions, but the richness of that culture has made people of the Valley “careful with what we share.”
She highlighted that the Valley’s Native Americans were “just so trusting at first.” Then a handful of people “took advantage of their kindness.” This is a lesson that has carried itself down through many generations of Valley inhabitants.
That self-preservation is one more aspect that makes these places so special. There are places in the Valley, nooks and crannies and entire swaths of landscape, that once you step into them, the only indication of when you are is the watch on your wrist or the phone in your pocket.
“The one special gift, I would say, of Northern New Mexico, in many ways, it’s very similar to what it was 50 years ago, in certain areas,” said Hansen. “ It hasn’t changed that much and that to me is reassuring. The culture here is so important, it is so unique. Northern New Mexico is one of the places that you can really think of as the cradle of civilization.”
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