Crossing of the Grand: Gateway on the Old Spanish Trail

For decades, beginning around eighteen thirty, this crossing of the Grand River, which we now call the Colorado, was one of the most important fords in the entire American West. It sat on the North Branch of the Old Spanish Trail, which linked Santa Fe to Los Angeles, and routes heading north into Utah are said to have met it here. Traders, explorers, and emigrant parties all funneled through this narrow arroyo to get across.

Before bridges and before the railroad pushed through the canyon, the river here was an obstacle and a chokepoint, and whoever knew this ford controlled movement through the plateau country. The crossing quietly shaped which settlements grew and which routes became roads, leaving its mark on the modern map of western Colorado.