Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve is a bit isolated out in the San Luis Valley next to the craggy Sangre de Cristo Mountains in Colorado. Yet, this national park still has a history to tell to those interested enough in learning about it.
Long before explorers and settlers ever saw the tallest dunes of North America, Indigenous peoples were traveling and trading through the San Luis Valley, utilizing the natural resources they found, such as the ponderosa pine, for building materials, medicine, waterproofing, and adhesives. Later, European explorers and settlers entered the scene and clashes ultimately resulted not only between the Indigenous peoples and the new arrivals, but also between the different cultural groups, including Hispanic and Japanese settlers.
Before The Europeans
Projectile points, Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve / NPS file
Evidence points to human visitation 11,000 years ago and possibly even further back than that, based upon archaeological finds of stone projectile points (arrowheads, spearpoints). Humans were inhabiting the area during the end of the last ice age (approx. 8,000 years ago), when the climate was wetter and melting glaciers provided abundant water.
Explorers And Settlers
Spanish exploration of the San Luis Valley began during the 16th century, but it wasn’t until the mid-1800s that the Spanish town of San Luis was established. Over all this time, no written record of the giant sand dunes’ presence was ever made. Yet, these Spanish explorers must have used the dunefield an identifiable landmark, or so it is theorized.
The Great Sand Dunes were not mentioned until Lieutenant Zebulon Pike and 20 soldiers, exploring the lands of the Louisiana Purchase in 1806-1807 at the behest of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, suffered through a freezing Colorado winter, during which they crossed over Medano Pass to camp at the base of the Great Sand Dunes. Pike wrote about their time there and described the dunes’ appearance as “… exactly that of the sea in a storm, except as to color…"
The 1820s saw a 2,700-mile (4,345 km) route forged to transport serapes and woolen goods from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Los Angeles, California, and horses and mules from California to Santa Fe. The Old Spanish Trail was a commercial route of intertwined trails conveying those goods back and forth, at one point passing over the San Luis Valley and alongside Great Sand Dunes. State Highway 150 and County Lane 6 on the southern border of the park follow or cross some of the Old Spanish Trail routes.
The mid-1800s saw three expeditions explore the valley and dunefield: two (1848 and 1853) led by John Fremont as he attempted to find a railroad route from St. Louis to California on behalf of the U.S. Topographical Engineers, and the third led by Captain John Gunnison of the U.S. Topographical Survey in 1853.
Buffalo Soldiers patrolling the area, Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve / NPS - Patrick Myers illustration
From 1852 – 1883, soldiers patrolled the valley and dunefield while protecting both settlers and tribes. Built at the southern end of the Sangre de Cristo Range upon the side of Blanca Peak in 1852, Fort Massachusetts was ultimately moved to the valley floor in 1858 and renamed Fort Garland. Soldiers from Fort Garland fought in the Battle of Glorietta Pass during the Civil War in 1862. From 1866 to 1867, Kit Carson lived with his family at Fort Garland as commander, forging relationships with the Hispanic communities as well as with the Ute tribes during his tenure. From 1876 – 1879, the Buffalo Soldiers patrolled the Great Sand Dunes region, protecting settlers and tribes while battling discrimination and poor treatment.
Today, the community of Fort Garland is home to the Fort Garland Museum and Cultural Center, where original buildings, artifacts, exhibits, and living history events tell the story of this fort and its inhabitants.
Soldiers barracks exhibit at Fort Garland Museum and Cultural Center / Rebecca Latson
During the 1860s, Hispanic and Anglo settlers homesteaded the San Luis Valley. What amounted to range wars flared up due to competition for land and resources, with wealthier landowners buying out (or driving out) the smaller landholders, all while fighting the Utes who felt their homeland was stolen from them by the settlers.
Baca ranch house ca 1920, Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve / Denver Public Library Collection
Spreads such as the Medano-Zapata Ranch, and the Baca Ranch, along with homesteaders and pioneers including Japanese settlers moving to the San Luis Valley – each with their own complex histories – are part and parcel of the park and surrounding landscape.
National Park Establishment
Great Sand Dunes National Monument was designated by President Herbert Hoover in 1932, thanks to a concerted effort by the ladies of the P.E.O. (Philanthropic Educational Organization) and concern by San Luis Valley residents for long-term protection of the Great Sand Dunes against the ravages of the 1920 gold rush during which Medano Creek placer mines sprang up and the Volcanic Mining Company established a process to mine gold from the sand in 1932.
Officials on the dunes during the designation of Great Sand Dunes National Monument ca 1932 / NPS file
According to the National Park Service:
On November 22, 2000, Congress passed the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve Act of 2000, which authorized the expansion of the national monument into a national park almost four times its original size. Like the proclamation of 1932, it was powered largely by valley residents who banded together to protect the resources important to them. In this era, the resource that was threatened was groundwater, as various companies sought to extract huge amounts of groundwater to pipe to rapidly expanding cities along the Front Range. The legislation authorized the purchase of privately held property from willing sellers for inclusion in Great Sand Dunes National Park.
Lands identified as vital to the protection of park resources included the Baca Ranch, owned for the past two decades by a consortium of commercial water developers. The Baca includes the northwestern corner of the dunefield, wetlands, nesting and migratory bird habitat, and numerous archaeological sites. This purchase, finalized on September 10, 2004, enabled Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton to affirm that "sufficient diversity of resources has been acquired to warrant designation of the land as a national park" on September 13, 2004. Great Sand Dunes National Monument was expanded into a large national park and preserve.
As part of the Act of 2000, roughly 42,000 acres of national forest wilderness area were immediately transferred to NPS management, and were renamed the Great Sand Dunes National Preserve. Natural resources in this area are quite different from those in the older national monument or the expanded national park, and include alpine tundra and lakes, subalpine forests, woodlands and streams.
The park and preserve now protect most of the dunes’ natural hydrological system, from mountain watershed to wetlands, ensuring "the perpetuation of the entire ecosystem for the enjoyment of future generations." Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve is also administered under the provision of the Organic Act of 1916, which specifies that units of the National Park system are: "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein…and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."
