About

A large, high elevation mesa and historic ranching range located west of the Colorado National Monument. It is accessible both from Glade Park and the Monument. In the early days of white settlement in the Grand Valley, Pinon Mesa was a popular summer retreat for residents (the Grand Mesa did not yet have a traversable road). According to oral history interviewee James Brouse, early pioneer Roy Dunham related to him that when he first came to the area in the late Nineteenth century, sagebrush covered very little of the land. The land was covered instead by what Dunham described as almost a buffalo grass, a tall grass that grew up to the stirrups on horseback. Dunham’s remembrance is consistent the memories of other early Mesa County residents, who also recalled tall grass on desert hills and on the mesas prior to the introduction of cattle. The range was once part of the S-Cross Ranch operated by Charles Sieber. Parts of the range were ran by the Thatcher Brothers, a pair of influential businessmen from Pueblo, Colorado who at one point employed the well-known black cowboy Charlie Glass at the S-Cross Ranch.

Source:
https://mesa.marmot.org/Archive/place:1520/Place

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Mesa County

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