Beneath you runs the headwaters of the Colorado River! Similar to how it provides water to over 4 million people today, it provided water to the homesteaders who called this valley home over a century ago.

What was the Homestead Act?

With the goal of promoting development in the American West, President Lincoln, passed a law in 1862 that promised any family or individual 160 free acres on the frontier given they inhabit the land for five years and “improve it”. Improvement being defined as clearing, building structures, cultivating plants and livestock, etc.

How did the Homestead Act Impact the Kawuneeche Valley?

A total of 270 million acres were claimed under the Act, here in the Kawuneeche Valley only a little over two dozen claims were successfully staked between 1880 and 1927, impacting roughly a quarter of the total area. 

Farmers and ranchers saw very little success converting the area to cropland due to the poor, swampy soil conditions and long winters. These factors also made livestock ranching difficult due to lack of accessible pastureland alongside natural competition between domestic livestock and native wildlife.

Not only that, but day to day activities could also face increased obstacles: Imagine having to walk through three feet of snow to use the outhouse! 

Despite the harsh landscape surrounding them, the homesteaders were keen to adapt the landscape around them to suit their needs, even though it was at the expense of the natural character of the ecosystem. If you stood in this very place a hundred years ago you would see willow dominated wetlands mixed with riparian forest. However, the removal of native vegetation was encouraged under the Homestead Act to make create an environment that was more habitable by humans and livestock.

Another example of this changed the course of the Colorado headwaters itself- as it was channelized and rerouted by inhabitants to distribute water to pastureland over a century ago.

When the Holzwarth family arrived in 1917, they sought this same goal of creating their own habitable oasis in the Rockies. But what was their background to qualify them as ranchers? And how did the family settle on the Kawuneeche Valley?