Crestone: A Brief History

Although the harsh winters prevented the first inhabitants of North America from living in the San Luis Valley year-round, at one time or another close to a dozen Native American tribes used the Valley for sacred hunts and vision quests. Taking in the wide vistas, crystalline streams, and juniper and pine-studded slopes of the Sangre de Christo Mountains makes it easy to understand why the first peoples of Colorado regarded this place as sacred. Known as the "Peaceful Valley", it was a holy place for the Ute; the Pueblo, Navajo, and other nations of the Southwest designated certain locales within the Valley as Places of Emergence or "Sipapu". These "Sipapu" were to be places of refuge during a coming time of earthly cataclysm when the world would be purified and made new.

Some claim that in 1540 the first Europeans passed through this splendid terrain in the company of the Spanish explorer Fernando Coronado. Whether these Conquistadors ever found the elusive gold that they so eagerly searched for in the Valley is questionable. However, gold was here in abundance and by the mid-eighteen-hundreds, American prospectors, sluicing and digging for yellow ore, vastly outnumbered the Spanish land-grant farmers and ranchers who had lived in the Valley since the 18^th century. By the mid-nineteen-hundreds, the boomtown of Crestone was in its heyday. A relic of Crestone’s gold mining past is preserved in a century-old stone wall, built by immigrant laborers, at the mining site on which the new Shumei Center will stand. The wall is now restored and will eventually be incorporated into the design of the Center’s complex.

In the beginning of the 20^th century, gold had played itself out and the mining industry that it spawned died in the whimper of a labor dispute. Moreover, the town of Crestone became little more than a ghost town, the majority of its residents being those interred in the town’s cemetery.

A rebirth came with a resurgence of cattle ranching, a way of life that had persisted in the Valley since the king of Spain granted the legendary Vaca family a land grant in the 17^th century. In the 20^th century, Crestone earned a reputation for its fine cattle and by mid-century had become the site of America’s best and largest Hereford cattle ranch. Logging also was introduced to the area at this time, reducing the forest cover of the mountain’s valleys and slopes and marring their splendor with skid roads and barren stumps.

Yet, throughout its history of human habitation and exploitation, the terrain kept its raw beauty and endured, and the sacred allure felt by the original inhabitants never left. Today, Crestone’s pull is still being felt by artists, travelers on various spiritual paths, and environmentalists. The Manitou Foundation and the Lindisfarne Association are active in the area.

It is in this setting at the crossroads of beauty, nature, and spirit that Shinji Shumeikai* is creating its Shumei Crestone Center. Dedicated to the happiness and well being of man and the world, Shumei members, as did their Native American predecessors, have found a fitting "Sipapu", a retreat where people can make ready for a world purified and transformed for the better.

* For more information about Shumei, its philosophy, and activities, please see www.Shumei.org.