Highway of Legends
Stonewall, CO

In the early 1800s, Spain and Mexico granted ownership of thousands of acres to individuals who promised to colonize the property. In 1841, Beaubien and Miranda were awarded a grant of 1,700,000 acres. Later, the grant was inherited by Lucian Maxwell, and became known as the Maxwell Land Grant. In the 1880s, representatives of the Maxwell Grant claimed that the Stonewall Valley was a part of the grant, and that settlers in the area must pay for their homesteads or leave. They sent armed guards into the Valley. The settlers, contending that the boundary markers had been moved north by Grant representatives, vowed not to leave without a fight. Richard Russell, one of Stonewall's earliest settlers, went under a white flag to the Stonewall Hotel to confront the Grant deputies. Armed settlers surrounded the hotel, and in the confusion, Russell was shot, and later died. The Grant men escaped by crawling through a coal chute. Despite pleas from the settlers, the U.S. Government upheld the Maxwell Land Grant claims, and the settlers found themselves paying for property they had lived on for years.

One of the oldest myths of Stonewall Valley is the tale of the "lonesome water." It is said that many years ago, when the earth was very young, some water flowing down from the Sangre de Cristo range fell in love with a little green valley that lay in the cool blue shadow of the great Stonewall. It refused to leave the Valley, sank deep into the ground and loitered where the roots of wild roses were tucked into the ground. The water, to this day, comes up only in clear, little springs among the rocky ridges. They say it has a peppermint flavor and looks like green ice, but once a person has tasted it, he is forever a lover of Stonewall Valley.