Ute Trail

Between A.D. 400 and 650, the Ute people finally laid claim to these mountains through occasional summer visits, and to the hunting grounds on either side. And for a while at least, between A.D. 650 and 1000, game-drive systems continued to be used. Some scholars think they were the descendents of the earlier Paleo-Indian and Archaic peoples of the region. Small family units hunted together, living off land that could not support large populations. Permanent dwellings were unnecessary since these people were nomadic. By the early 1600s, Spanish explorers encountered the Utes. Prospectors and missionaries followed. Trade started prior to 1680. The Utes began exchanging meat and hides for agricultural produce. They also began buying horses. By the early 1700s, the Ute and Comanche raided the Apaches on the plains. They then began attacking Spanish settlements in New Mexico until a treaty was negotiated in 1789. In 1748 a fight developed between the Utes and Comanche. By 1755 the Utes retreated to the western slope of the Rockies. And there they remained throughout the next century.

Their presence was not regarded as bothersome to the new invaders until later in the 1870s. Earlier in the 1860s, treaties had granted the Ute people rights to the western one third of Colorado. But when gold was discovered in the San Juan Mountains Indians were forced to cede that region in 1873. Escalating violent clashes late in the decade led to growing public hatred toward the Indians. Demands for reprisals sealed the Utes' fate; the popular cry became "The Utes must go!" And their fate meant removal from most of Colorado during the 1880s. Even though the Indians themselves disappeared from the area quickly, the place-name of the Ute Trail serves to remember their centuries of hunting and travelling in the region.

Credits and Sources:

“Rocky Mountain National Park: A History. Chapter 1: Tales, Trails, and Tribes.” National Park Service. Park History Program. Accessed May 31, 2015. http://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/romo/buchholtz/chap1.htm