Evocation

Evocation. . , The adobe placita ("little plaza") before you bears many features typical of fur trade-era trading posts in the West, but it is not an entirely accurate reconstruction of the historic El Pueblo. George Simpson, Matthew Kinkead, Robert Fisher, and Jim Beckwourth were among the traders associated with El Pueblo at the time of its construction, around 1842. A multiethnic, multicultural group of opportunists built El Pueblo in the style of a Mexican placita, constructed primarily of adobe bricks. The settlement stood on the north bank of the Arkansas River, a long-established ecological and cultural crossroads, and the international boundary between Mexico and the United States. Native Americans, Americans, Europeans, and Mexicans used El Pueblo for trading goods that ranged from guns, powder, beads, and whiskey to agricultural products and livestock until 1848, when most inhabitants departed for the California Gold Rush. , Accounts of El Pueblo vary widely. However, they describe a plaza used for trading and housing animals, a blacksmith shop, and many rooms with low doors (much lower than they are today) that served as homes, all surrounded by four adobe walls that boasted two round guard towers. El Pueblo was designed for protection against theft rather than attack, although the story of its demise is brutal. On December 24, 1854, a group of Ute and Jicarilla Apache Indians killed or captured all occupants inside EI Pueblo, the result of escalating tensions between Native Americans and newcomers. Residents were already in the process of moving to New Town" at the mouth of the Huerfano River about thirty miles south of here. This perhaps hastened their retreat. The site was then used for a time as a corral and domiciles, and many adobe bricks were recycled into early Pueblo structures. Eventually Ei Pueblo disappeared beneath the city around you. Original wall fragments are visible in the Archaeological Pavilion, to your right. , [Captions:] , [Top:] In 1854, perhaps foreshadowing the events of December 24, Kit Carson (Ute agent from 1854 to 1861) and others warned that the Ute and Jicarilla Apache Indians were starving and near despair. This photo was taken twelve years later at the signing of the Kit Carson Treaty in Washington, D.C. Colorado Historical Society , [Background:] William Quesenbury sketched At Pueblo, from the East in 1850. The river today approximately one-quarter mile south of its location in this sketch. Courtesy Omaha World Herald Quesenbury Sketchbook