Park mapNative people

The oldest evidence of humans in the area dates back about 11,000 years. Some of the first people to enter the San Luis Valley and the Great Sand Dunes area were nomadic hunter-gatherers whose connection to the area centered around the herds of mammoths and prehistoric bison. They were Stone Age people who hunted with large stone spears or dart points now identified as Clovis and Folsom points. These people only stayed when hunting and plant gathering was good, and avoided the region during times of drought and scarcity.[1]

 Members of the Jicarrilla Apache Mundo gather at the Great Sand Dunes to share traditional clothings, crafts, stories, and dances in July of 2019.

Modern American Indian tribes were familiar with the area when Spaniards first arrived in the 17th century. The traditional Ute phrase for the Great Sand Dunes is Saa waap maa nache (sand that moves). Jicarilla Apaches settled in northern New Mexico and called the dunes Sei-anyedi (it goes up and down). Blanca Peak, just southeast of the dunes, is one of the four sacred mountains of the Navajo, who call it Sisnaajini (White Shell Mountain). These various tribes collected the inner layers of bark from ponderosa pine trees for use as food and medicine. The people from the Tewa/Tiwa-speaking pueblos along the Rio Grande remember a traditional site of great importance located in the valley near the dunes: the lake through which their people emerged into the present world. They call the lake Sip'ophe (Sandy Place Lake), which is thought to be the springs or lakes immediately west of the dune field.[1]

Settler exploration

In 1694, Don Diego de Vargas became the first European known to have entered the San Luis Valley, although herders and hunters from the Spanish colonies in present-day northern New Mexico probably entered the valley as early as 1598. De Vargas and his men hunted a herd of 500 bison in the southern part of the valley before returning to Santa Fe. In 1776, Juan Bautista de Anza and an entourage of men and livestock probably passed near the dunes as they returned from a punitive raid against a group of Comanches. At this time, the valley was a travel route between the High Plains and Santa Fe for Comanches, Utes, and Spanish soldiers. The dunes were likely a visible landmark for travelers along the trail.[1]

The first known writings about Great Sand Dunes appear in Zebulon Pike's journals of 1807. As Lewis and Clark's expedition was returning east, U.S. Army Lt. Pike was commissioned to explore as far west as the Arkansas and Red Rivers. By the end of November 1806, Pike and his men had reached the site of today's Pueblo, Colorado. Still pushing southwest, and confused about the location of the Arkansas River, Pike crossed the Sangre de Cristos just above the Great Sand Dunes.[1]

After marching some miles, we discovered ... at the foot of the White Mountains [today's Sangre de Cristos] which we were then descending, sandy hills ... When we encamped, I ascended one of the largest hills of sand, and with my glass could discover a large river [the Rio Grande] ... The sand hills extended up and down the foot of the White Mountains about 15 miles [24 km] and appeared to be about 5 miles [8 km] in width. Their appearance was exactly that of the sea in a storm, except as to color, not the least sign of vegetation existing thereon.[1]

 John C. Frémont

In 1848, John C. Frémont was hired to find a railroad route from St. Louis to California. He crossed the Sangre de Cristos into the San Luis Valley in winter, courting disaster but proving that a winter crossing of this range was possible. He was followed in 1853 by Captain John Gunnison of the Corps of Topographical Engineers. Gunnison's party crossed the dune field on horseback.[1]

19th & 20th century settlement

In the years that followed, the Rockies were gradually explored, treaties were signed and broken with resident tribes, and people with widely differing goals entered the San Luis Valley from the United States and Mexico. In 1852, Fort Massachusetts was built and then relocated to Fort Garland, about 20 mi (32 km) southeast of the Great Sand Dunes, to safeguard travel for settlers following the explorers into the valley. Although many settlers arrived via the trails from Santa Fe or La Veta Pass, several routes over the Sangre de Cristos into the valley were well-known to American Indians and increasingly used by settlers in the late 1800s. Medano Pass, also known as Sand Hill Pass, and Mosca Pass, also called Robidoux's Pass, offered more direct routes from the growing front range cities and dropped into the valley just east of the Great Sand Dunes. Trails were improved into wagon routes and eventually into rough roads. The Mosca Pass Toll Road was developed in the 1870s and stages and the mail route used it regularly until about 1911, when the western portion was damaged in a flash flood. Partially rebuilt at times in the 1930s through the 1950s, the road was repeatedly closed due to flood damage and is now a hiking trail.[1]

 Medano Creek

The Herard family—after whom Mount Herard is named[2]—established a ranch and homestead along Medano Creek in 1875, using the old Medano Pass Road to travel to and from their home. The modern unpaved road follows the old route and is open only to four-wheel drive, and high-clearance vehicles as it passes through deep sand, rises to Medano Pass, and continues east into the Wet Mountain Valley. The Herards grazed and bred cattle in the mountain meadows, raised horses, and established a trout hatchery in the stream. Other families homesteaded near the dunes as well, including the Teofilo Trujillo family whose sheep and cattle ranch in the valley later became part of the Medano–Zapata Ranch, owned by the Nature Conservancy since 1999. The Trujillo's extant homestead and the ruins of a destroyed one were declared a National Historic Landmark in 2004.[3] Frank and Virginia Wellington built a cabin and hand-dug the irrigation ditch that parallels Wellington Ditch Trail located south of the park campground.[1]

Gold and silver rushes occurred around the Rockies after 1853, bringing miners by the thousands into the state and stimulating mining businesses that are still in operation. Numerous small strikes occurred in the mountains around the San Luis Valley. People had frequently speculated that gold might be present in the Great Sand Dunes, and local newspapers ran articles in the 1920s estimating its worth at anywhere from 17 cents/ton to $3/ton (equivalent to $2/ton to $44/ton today). Active placer mining operations sprang up along Medano Creek, and in 1932 the Volcanic Mining Company established a gold mill designed to recover gold from the sand. Although minute quantities of gold were recovered, the technique was too labor-intensive, the stream too seasonal, and the pay-out too small to support any business for long.[1]

Preservation

The idea that the dunes could be destroyed by gold mining or concrete manufacturing alarmed residents of Alamosa and Monte Vista. By the 1920s, the dunes had become a source of pride for local people, and a potential source of tourist dollars for local businesses. Members of the P.E.O. Sisterhood sponsored a bill to Congress asking for national monument status for Great Sand Dunes. Widely supported by local people, the bill was signed into law in 1932 by President Herbert Hoover. Similar support in the late 1990s resulted in the monument's expansion into a national park and preserve in 2000–2004.[1]