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Boggsville: Colorado's First Settlement & Kit Carson's Last Home
Description: Discover the history of Boggsville near Las Animas, Colorado-founded in 1866 by Thomas O. Boggs and Rumalda Luna Boggs. Learn how it became the region's first permanent settlement and the final home of frontiersman Kit Carson before its decline with the railroad's arrival... Read the Article by the Trinidad, Colorado Welcome Center...
Did you know? About two miles southeast of present day Las Animas, Colorado, Boggsville was established in 1866 by the great grandson of Daniel Boone, Thomas O. Boggs (1824–1894). He founded the settlement on land owned by his wife, Rumalda Luna Boggs, which she had inherited through a substantial Mexican era land grant.
Located near the confluence of the Arkansas and Purgatoire Rivers, Boggsville became the first permanent non military settlement in southeastern Colorado. Its early residents were true pioneers, they developed irrigation systems and established large-scale farming and ranching operations that helped turn the Arkansas Valley into a productive agricultural region. The town enjoyed a short but vibrant period of growth in the late 1860s and early 1870s, serving as an important hub of commerce and community life.
In 1867, the settlement welcomed another famous resident: the legendary frontiersman Kit Carson, who moved to Boggsville with his wife Josefa Jaramillo Carson and their family. Josefa wanted to be near her niece, Rumalda Luna Boggs. The Carsons lived in one of the homes at Boggsville, making it Kit Carson’s last home. Tragically, Josefa died in childbirth in 1868, and a short time later the ailing Kit Carson was taken to nearby Fort Lyon, where he passed away on May 23, 1868. Thomas Boggs later served as executor of Carson’s will.
However, Boggsville’s prominence began to fade in the 1870s. When the railroad arrived a few miles away in the new town of Las Animas, many residents and businesses relocated there. Las Animas soon became the county seat, drawing economic activity away from Boggsville and leading to its gradual decline.
At the heart of Boggsville’s story is Rumalda Luna Jaramillo Boggs (1831–1906). Only a few photographs of her are known to exist today. Born into a prominent merchant class and landowning family in Taos, New Mexico, Rumalda belonged to the influential Jaramillo family. Their social standing and connections brought both remarkable opportunities and significant hardships, many of her relatives lost their lives amid the political unrest and violence that marked the turbulent mid-19th century.
A key turning point came with the death of her godfather, Cornelio Vigil, whose inheritance gave Rumalda ownership of a large portion of the Vigil-St. Vrain Land Grant in southern Colorado. At just 15 years old, Rumalda married 21 year-old Thomas Oliver Boggs on May 22, 1846. Such marriages between well-connected Hispanic landowning women and Anglo men were common during this era, especially around the time of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, as families worked to protect and strengthen their status in the newly American Southwest.
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