Trujillo Homesteads in Colorado Named National Historic Landmark

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has designated the Trujillo Homesteads in Colorado as a national historic landmark. The homesteads are an early Hispanic settlement in Colorado's San Luis Valley. "Latino settlement in Colorado is an important chapter in the history of the West," Salazar said in making the announcement Tuesday, "marking the northernmost expansion of the Spanish colonial frontier in the region." A news release on the designation said: "The Trujillo Homesteads provides an exceptional representation of the expansion of Hispano-American settlement into the American Southwest following the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo as well as an illustration of the conflict between cattle ranchers, who were primarily Anglo-Americans, and sheep herders, who were primarily Hispano-Americans." The news release said archeology might yield some valuable information that would address significant questions about ethnicity and race in the West...more