San Ygnacio de la Alamosa, also known as Alamosa, is now a ghost town, in Sierra County, New Mexico, United States. San Ygnacio de la Alamosa was founded in 1859 as a native New Mexican colonizing settlement from San Antonio. The site of the new colony was along the west bank of the Rio Grande, 35 miles south of Fort Craig, on the south bank of Alamosa Creek nearby its mouth and confluence with the Rio Grande, in what was then southern Socorro County.
History
Establishment
San Ygnacio de la Alamosa was the first native New Mexican colony established south of San Antonio along the west bank of the Rio Grande and north of Santa Barbara and Fort Thorn (established in 1853) since the Pueblo Revolt. The east bank had an attempt at colonization in 1819-1826 when there was an attempt to establish a hacienda of the Armendáriz Grant, at Valverde that failed due to Apache raids. However by 1860, under the protection of Fort Conrad and then Fort Craig, Valverde had become a small settlement and Paraje had been established south of Valverde in 1857. Two years later the town of San Ygnacio de la Alamosa was settled.
The prime mover of establishing Alamosa was Estanislado Montoya a farmer and merchant, age 40, from San Antonio, recorded in the 1860 Census of San Ygnacio de la Alamosa with a personal estate of $10,000 and real estate of $2,000. He organized this colony but by December 1864 had returned to San Antonio to continue acquiring and selling real estate there and in Socorro and San Pedro in the following two decades.
The town would be protected by Fort Craig, 35 miles north of the new town along the Fort Craig - Fort Thorn Wagon Road. That road ran through the town, and down along the west bank of the Rio Grande to Fort Thorn and to roads south into Texas and west toward California. The road was following the wagon road route established by Cooke's Mormon Battalion in 1846. They had been following an old route occasionally followed by early Spanish and later Mexican travelers. It was soon after the end of the Mexican American War that the same wagon road was followed by many others intent on joining the California Gold Rush. By 1857 it was a well beaten route used by supply trains and troops for the forts.
The Settlement
The 1860 Census showed Alamosa with a population of 321 persons, 169 males and 152 females living as 71 families in 73 dwellings. All had Hispanic names, and all had been born in New Mexico. 43 of the family heads identified themselves as laborers, 17 identified themselves as farmers, one as a blacksmith, one as a carpenter and one as a musician, the remainder gave no occupation. The census taker reported June 25, 1860, that the settlement was so new that no crops had yet been harvested.
Irrigation and farms were first established on the west bank of the Rio Grande as these farmers were accustomed to do in the broader river valley upstream of Mesa del Contadero where they had come from. In July 1862 a great flood, in this narrower valley with a faster moving river, washed most of these farms and irrigation ditches away. The farms in the Cañada Alamosa were unaffected. Some citizens returned to farm along the river but some moved upstream in 1863 to establish farms in the cañada just below the place where Alamosa Creek emerged from the narrow canyon it made through the mountains.
Conflicts
San Ygnacio de la Alamosa was established on land occupied by the Warm Springs or Tchihende (Mimbreño) Apache. These Apache lands extended east and west of the Rio Grande, south of the Mesa del Contadero and north of Dona Ana. They included the Jornada del Muerto desert and the various mountain ranges within it, as well as west of the Rio Grande. It had been theirs before the arrival of the Spanish in the area and held by them for centuries with no successful attempt to settle them by the Spanish or later by the Mexicans.