Rio Grande Ranchos, Colorado

The Rio Grande Ranchos

are located in Costilla County, Colorado, 34 miles southwest of the town of Fort Garland, where stands the historic fort that was the last command of Kit Carson. Fort Garland is approximately 200 miles south of Denver and approximately 200 miles north of Albuquerque. Just 15 miles east is the town of San Luis, the oldest town in Colorado, founded in 1851. There's a cluster of wooden houses and a central square with a charming church. A path leading up a mesa features a series of bronze sculptures by Huberto Maestas, depicting the Stations of the Cross. Miniatures of these sculptures were presented to Pope John Paul II and are now in the Vatican Museum.

If you are looking for a beautifully scenic Colorado property with road frontage, great wildlife, and $1 million views, this is the property for you. We encourage you to go view the property. Once you see it, you will be sold as we were.

This property is near Alamosa and San Luis, great towns full of nice people, good food, and entertainment. You get the advantages of country living, AND the advantages of living near the city. Pretty much a win-win situation if you ask me.

This is a perfect opportunity for someone looking for a great investment, and of course, to enjoy. Colorado land prices are taking off, and as Colorado land is getting more popular in the real estate business... don't expect the climb in value to cool off anytime soon!

The elevation of the property is around 8,500 feet above sea level. This offers perfect summers with days around 80-75 degrees and an inch or two of precipitation a month, and cozy winters at 35 degrees with about half an inch of precipitation.

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Property Map

San Luis Valley (Click to enlarge)

Lot No.	Acres	Price	Unit	Block	Map Downloads
4	5	Sold	8	0	Area	Lot
18	5	Sold	8	0	Area	Lot
39	5	Sold	8	0	Area	Lot
49	5	Sold	8	0	Area	Lot
52	5	Sold	8	0	Area	Lot
113	5	Sold	8	0	Area	Lot
126	5	Sold	8	0	Area	Lot
2	5	Sold	11	0	Area	Lot
6	5	Sold	11	0	Area	Lot
114	5	Sold	11	0	Area	Lot
59	5	Sold	24	0	Area	Lot
18	5	Sold	30	1	Area	Lot
19	5	Sold	30	1	Area	Lot
20	5	Sold	30	1	Area	Lot
25	5	Sold	30	1	Area	Lot
4	5	Sold	46	6	Area	Lot
5	5	Sold	46	35	Area	Lot
10	5	Sold	48	7	Area	Lot
10	5	Sold	49	5	Area	Lot

Down Payment Options Down Payment Interest Rate $299.00   10.99%   5%   9.99%   10%   8.99%   20%   7.99%   30%   6.99%   50%   5.99%   Cash Payment Options Payment Discount Cash   10%

Loan Calculator Numbers Only, No $ or % Symbols Loan Amount:  Number of Payments:  Interest Rate:  Monthly Payment:

Property Information

Parcel Size:	Tracts Ranging in Size from 5 +/- Acres (330 X 660)
Property Taxes:	Less Than $50 Per Year & Current
Legal:	Rio Grande Ranchos Subdivision
Location:	Costilla County, Colorado
Electricity:	Solar or Generator (At Buyer's Cost)
Waste:	Septic (At Buyer's Cost)
Water:	Storage or Well (At Buyer's Cost)
Association Fees:	None
Access:	Easy Access via well maintained dirt road
Time-Limit To Build:	None
Zoning:	Estate Residential
Liens & Judgments:	None
Deed Type:	Warranty Deed
Additional Notes:	This property was acquired with title insurance and buyer will own it free and clear! Guaranteed!

Driving Directions from San Luis, Colorado

Head West on Highway 142	15 miles
Turn Left on County Highway 50.5 into subdivision	1.3 miles

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Actual Photos From the Surrounding San Luis valley

Road Leading up to Subdivision

Blanca Peak

Frequently Asked Questions

Costilla County - Where Colorado Began!

Costilla County is located in south central Colorado, sharing its southern boundary with New Mexico (of which it was once a part). Costilla is part of the San Luis Valley, an 8,000 square mile alpine valley nicknamed the American Tibet, with an average altitude of 7800 feet above sea level. Costilla County is the home to Colorado's oldest town, San Luis, founded in 1851. Many villages of the County were the last to be established on a Spanish/Mexican land grant in this country. It is home to Colorado's oldest Christian structure (the San Acacio Mission) and the nation's newest shrine, the Stations of the Cross. California's gold rush was about gold. Colorado's gold is water, and the state's first water rights, the San Luis Peoples Ditch, is located right here in Costilla County. And to top all that, Costilla County has the last working Commons in America where local residents have grazed their sheep, cattle and horses on six hundred shared, unfenced acres for hundreds of years.

Costilla County was inhabited by the ancestors of today's families well before Colorado became a state. Those first Hispano settlers brought with them a language and culture that still exists today, four hundred years after the Spanish first arrived in the Americas. Except for the Native Americans who were here first, this is the oldest community in Colorado.

Real Estate Values on the Rise in Costilla County

According to a 2005 article in La Sierra, the official news source for the Costilla County, real estate prices in the area are being driven higher by strong appreciation in property values from Taos, just an hour south.

According to the article, the town of Taos, New Mexico, has become an art mecca, lifestyle center, and tourist destination where wealthy newcomers are eager to buy up land for their dream homes. High Taos prices have been pushing growth to the north where even in Costilla County, two-acre lake front lots are being advertised for $85,000 and farmland is selling for $10,000 an acre.

Read the article!

Adventure

You stand at waters edge of a high desert lake. The mountains encircle you and extend as far as the eye can see. A mid-summer storm has left a double rainbow framing distant peaks. You have come to Costilla County, a special place in splendored, protected isolation. Eleven-hundred square miles, nestled within the San Luis Valley, dotted with historic towns and villages, threaded by dusty, winding roads. This is where Colorado began, and this is where you begin your Colorado experience. You will find ranches without dudes, farms without petting pens and small-town eateries that consider rosemary smoked lamb a foreign dish. "Nouvelle cuisine" and "boutique" have yet to enter the local vernacular because Costilla County is no new age, neatly packaged theme park. It is history and adventure at every turn with all the necessary ingredients to entertain the whole family.

Come immerse yourself in a unique culture. Walk the roads of villages that were founded by ancestors of today's inhabitants. Meet the people who measure their history here in multiples of generations and speak a Spanish that still contains words and phrases of ancient origins. In our villages, visit some of the earliest structures erected in Colorado, the small, sturdy mission churches, built by local labor all those many years ago. If your timing is right, you might be lucky enough to take part in a local celebration, most likely of religious origin. Hike the Rio Grande Gorge and find petroglyphs, arrowheads or maybe grinding stones left by civilizations we are just beginning to know.

A peak experience awaits the mountain climber. Colorado has fifty-four peaks that exceed 14,000 feet and four of those can be accessed from Costilla County, Little Bear, Lindsay and Culebra. Blanca at 14,345 is higher than Pikes Peak. For the angler who relishes the Zen experience of fly fishing, or for the bank sitter, streams and lakes abound in cutthroat, rainbow, browns and pike. Elk, deer and mountain lion wander the forests and mountains.

Visit the artists village of Jaroso or explore Fort Garland, once commanded by Kit Carson. Find spiritual renewal as you tour the internationally acclaimed Stations of the Cross Shrine in San Luis, and then experience the grandeur of the Great Sand Dunes National Monument near Blanca. A seeming millennium away from the outside, whirling, mad dash world, Costilla County, year round, is the experience of a lifetime.

History

Gold and silver discoveries near Summitville in 1870 fueled the mining rush to the San Luis Valley environs. While other mining settlements quickly followed at Creede and Bonzana, the history of the Valley’s settlement was greatly influenced by the railroad, farming, ranching, and timber.

Before written history, native American cultures, including Clovis and Folsom, hunted and gathered in the area 11,000 years ago. Spain claimed the area in the 1500’s and established land grants to attract settlers. However, clashes with Comanches left the valley largely unsettled for many years. Zebulon Pike, exploring the southern part of the Louisiana Purchase and after his discovery of Pike’s Peak, was awed by the view of the Sand Dunes (probably from Medano Pass) in 1807. Until Mexico’s liberation from Spain in 1821, Spain claimed the San Luis Valley. The 1850’s saw the first permanent settlements.

Just 2 years after Colorado became a state, a narrow-gauge train loaded with expectant settlers and their belongings stopped at a protected bend in the Rio Grande shaded by a grove of cottonwoods. In 1878 Alamosa – Spanish for cottonwood grove – was founded.

Trains delivered lumber and hardware and left with agricultural products. Over the next ten years rails were laid in all four directions and Alamosa became a veritable center of the San Luis Valley.

The easy access to the mountain regions surrounding the San Luis Valley are a major attraction for visitors and locals alike. Not only a provider of recreation, the forests are a key economic resource. The extensive Rio Grande National Forest first came under government control in 1891 with the authorization of the Timber Reserves Act in 1891. Established to conserve the nation’s timber, range and water resources, much of this land has remained unspoiled and public. The Great Sand Dunes National Park (first created as a monument in 19xx) and The San Luis Lakes State Park offer outdoor recreation on the valley floor.

In 1921, Adams State College was founded as a teaching college and is now a bachelor- and master-degree granting institution.

With a population of around 16,000, Alamosa today offers majestic mountain views, the winding Rio Grande, clear skies, breathing room, abundant agriculture, a thriving economy, and two institutions of higher learning.

But perhaps you’d like to recapture the feel of a bygone era. Travel our rails or visit mining towns. From Medano Pass let your gaze wander from the sand dunes across the San Luis Valley to mountains and your view of natural beauty will be similar to Zebulon Pike’s 200 years ago.

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