By Becky Tsilis MSNHA office assistant & League of Outdoor Women leader
In early October, MSNHA staff members Carrie Crawford, TJ Johnson and I traveled to the 2022 Alliance of National Heritage Areas Fall Conference in Alamosa, Colorado. Each year, a conference is held in the fall and spring and hosted by one of the 55 heritage areas located across the country. This fall conference was presented by the Sangre De Cristo National Heritage Area, which covers the southern Colorado counties of Alamosa, Conejos and Costilla. The mission of the Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area is to promote, preserve, protect & interpret its historic, religious, environmental, geographic, geologic, cultural & linguistic resources. The weeklong conference highlighted & celebrated this mission and the programs & projects that the Heritage Area is most proud of.
Highlights of our first touring day included the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad, a National Historic Landmark that moves. At 64-miles in length, it is the longest & highest & most authentic steam railroad in North America. It travels through some of the most spectacular scenery in the Rocky Mountain West. Owned by the states of Colorado and New Mexico, the train crosses state borders 11 times while zigzagging along canyon walls, burrowing through two tunnelsa nd steaming over 137-foot Cascade Trestle. We were able to see the steam engine up close & learn how the Sangre De Cristo National Heritage area helped with the preservation & restoration of several old engines & train cars. We visited the Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Conejos, the oldest church/parish in Colorado. We also toured El Santuario de los Pobladores, an adobe labyrinth where workers & volunteers have molded thousands of mud bricks that will form the walls of a giant prayer labyrinth. The labyrinth encourages slow, meditative movement through a circular design that tells the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It resembles a maze but has only one path. When completed, it will be one of the largest adobe buildings constructed in the 21st century. While there, we felt a sense of reverence similar to when visiting Tom’s Wall in Lauderdale County.
The next day, the AHNA business meeting was held. We covered several topics but especially the continued need for advocacy efforts on the passage of the National Heritage Area Act, which would standardize the NHA program & reauthorize most NHAs through 2037. Later, to spotlight the partnership between Heritage Areas & the National Park Service, we were treated to a visit to Great Sand Dunes National Park, dinner under the stars and a Dark Sky program presented by NPS staff — definitely a highlight of the trip.
Our final day of touring brought us to Fort Garland Museum and Cultural Center. Fort Garland was built in 1858 after the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo during American expansion into the west. Today visitors can explore life in a 19th-century military fort by walking the parade grounds & touring five original adobe buildings. The main focus of this visit, however, was the interpretation of sensitive or difficult history. Unsilenced, an installation on display in one of the original adobe buildings, spotlights indigenous enslavement in southern Colorado. It incorporates historic photos of Indigenous captives and images of former Colorado Lt. Gov. Lafayette Head’s 1865 census of enslaved Indigenous people in Conejos and Costilla counties. Also on display is Merciless Indian Savages exhibition of Indigenous art, which explores what American Democracy means in Indian Country & to a person whose ancestors were insulted in its founding document. This was definitely a moving, thoughtful & poignant day for all.
Sangre De Cristo National Heritage Area was a delight in its beauty, culture, history & education. And there was the food – authentic tacos, fajitas, and etc. – and traditional dancing & music, including a mariachi band. The trip highlighted the Heritage Area & its mission & efforts. Each of us came away with something new as well as ideas for when MSNHA hosts this spring! ###
