Rabbitbrush Rambler: Turn, turn

When I was writing about enjoying autumn foliage last week, I thought it would be nice to take another sightseeing ride about picturesque church buildings that are scattered around the Valley in isolated locations. Omitting any of the churches in today’s towns, let’s take a ride in an ordinary old sedan, with no 4WD, ORV, ATC, or 600hp needed. But bring your camera.

These picturesque structures dotting the countryside are reminders of the Valley’s beginnings. Most are the Hispanic capillas that once were essential to the religious and social life of the Valley’s original Hispanic settlers, although most of the buildings see little activity today except on special religious occasions. Turn, turn.

Early Spanish-speaking settlers brought their traditional customs and skills from New Mexico that depended on mud as a building material. As a result, they were simple, narrow rectangles constructed with adobe bricks, flat roofs with ceilings of peeled poles (latillas), dirt floors and tiny windows to let a tiny bit of light in. The exterior walls required plastering with mud and straw once a year to prevent their getting wet and crumbling. This is what is called the Spanish American Vernacular form of construction and style.

But changes gradually appeared, making them more functional. First came a floor of stone or wood, a gabled roof to shed the rain and snow, more windows, white plastering outside and inside, a small belfry over the entrance, then fancier windows with rectangular, pointed, or rounded tops or even stained glass with the donors’ names immortalized on them, an ell-shaped addition for a sacristy at some. Actually, they look like the one-room schoolhouses that we still see around the Valley, such as at Mirage (southeast of Villa Grove) that were constructed with lumber and without any fancy windows or ells.

As years passed, changes appeared. Agua Ramon (northeast of South Fork) has rounded window and door frames and an ell, and Valdezes (near Seven Mile Plaza) has stained glass windows and an ell. At Viejo San Acacio (west of San Luis) the oldest capilla in the Valley was built in 1854 and eventually had to have buttresses at the corners to shore its walls up. Los Fuertes (southeast of San Luis) has some shingles.

So, they are not all alike but have certain unmistakable  resemblances. Drive up from Ortiz to San Miguel (just south of the line in New Mexico) to see a picturesque little chapel erected in the 1920s with stone, the most abundant building material in that remote spot, but still having the old familiar rectangular style topped off with a belfry. The adobe church at San Rafael (Paisaje) has a unique belfry.

When some burned, liked Los Sauces (east of Sanford) and La Garita, they were replaced on the 1920s with buildings in the old style but with various improvements or embellishments. The one at Ceniceros was not replaced, and Lobatos’ first one has been completely altered for other uses.

Residents of the Valley had been coming from many nations and faiths and had adopted or adapted the traditional styles. The Presbyterian Church (1897) is an example of blending in a largely Hispanic area at Mogote (west of Conejos), with adobe walls but clapboard at the upper level, and gambrel roof, and with its entrance and bell tower set an angle. And wood flooring of course.

By the early 1900s, various materials and derivative styles of architecture were becoming popular. For example, during your sightseeing drive, take a side street through Moffat to see the First Baptist Church of Moffat (1911), designed in a Queen Anne style and incorporating ornamental concrete blocks and pressed metal shingles. By the time that Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Conejos was being replaced after its destruction by fire in the 1920s, fired bricks and concrete blocks had come along even in largely Hispanic areas, so its prestigious design bears no resemblance to anything else in the Valley, new or old.

Everything changes, and a nostalgic ride through our countryside can remind us of our history if we take a drive. Turn, turn.