We are going to start a new blog...Sierra County History Before Sierra County Existed!!

Archeological records show long before there was a Sierra County, long before there was even a NM, people lived here.  We call them the Jornada Mogollon people, and they are the ancestors of the Tewa and Piro people who built pueblos along the Rio Grande.  They hunted and gathered across the land as early as 12,000 years ago.  In time, they learned to domesticate corn, beans, and squash and settled into villages of pit houses along the rivers and near the hot springs.

About 1100 A.D., the Apaches arrived.  Over the centuries, these Athabascan people from Alaska migrated on foot south along the Rocky Mountains as there were  no horses in the Americas until after the Spanish conquest of the 15th and 16th Centuries.  The Apaches were principally nomadic hunter/gatherers, and they found the land abundant in game, plant foods, and clear water.  They traded meat, hides, bone, and other items of their hunting culture for agricultural products with the people along the Rio Grande.  Their relationship wasn't always peacdful, but the Apaches and Puebloans learned to live with each other.

Then the Spanish arrived.  Francisco Vazques de Coronado explored the Mogollon rim in 1540.  A half century later, Castano de Sosa came into New Mexico without permission from the king's officials.  He traveled along the Pecos River as far north as Taos until he was arrested by Captain Juan Morlete.  De Sosa was then escorted down the Rio Grande, through what became Sierra County, and out of New Mexico in disgrace.

Much more to follow.........................many thanks to the Official  2012-2013 Visitors Guide for this information