Architect, artist, and professor Ronald Rael returned home to his small Conejos County village mid-pandemic — and was welcomed with a characteristic and unparalleled connection of self, land and place. Rael reflects how his upbringing and a burgeoning sense of identity rooted deeply in the earth led him on a career path as an architect of the elements.
At a San Luis Valley museum once dedicated to the memory of infamous U.S. Army commandant Kit Carson, another narrative is now unfolding: the long, oft-forgotten history of enslaved Indigenous peoples and Native Americans, both pre- and post-Emancipation Proclamation.
An on-site interactive workshop at the Lafayette Head Home and Ute Indian Agency — listed as 2021’s Most Endangered Place in Colorado — combines on-site education, community knowledge, and age-old building practices into an ongoing practice of restoration and healing.
History, identity, culture, resistance, and stewardship of natural resources are centered in the south San Luis Valley. From Conejos to Los Rincones, across the Rio Grande to Viejo San Acacio, San Pedro, and San Francisco, local residents remember and reflect.
Colorado's oldest water rights are a system of hand-dug acequia irrigation ditches predating statehood, created by Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo settlers. Today, the 73 acequias of Costilla County's RÃo Culebra Watershed serve as the crux of agriculture and ranching for over 300 families and are often maintained by descendants of those who constructed them.
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