01/14/2026
Interesting story!
12 REASONS WHY BACA COUNTY STANDS OUT
1. BOSTON, THE COWBOY TOWN THAT DESTROYED ITSELF
Boston — the very first community established in Baca County — appeared on the prairie in 1886 and grew with astonishing speed. It had saloons, businesses, ambitions, and a reputation for trouble. Within three years, gunfights and lawlessness spiraled out of control. In 1889, after a violent confrontation that made headlines across the region, the town literally collapsed. People fled. Buildings were abandoned. Within a short time, Boston vanished from the earth. Today, only faint traces and a lonely cemetery, 9 miles southeast of Vilas, mark the spot where a boomtown exploded and then died almost overnight.
2. THE FORGOTTEN “CARRIZO” SETTLEMENTS
In the far southwest corner of the county, near the Oklahoma line, a constellation of settlements appeared in the late 1800s: Carrizo City, Carrizo Flats, Carrizo Springs, and others. Some were mining camps, some were ranching outposts, all were ambitious. Yet within a few short years most were abandoned, wiped out by drought, isolation, hard winters, or pure bad luck. Their names survive mostly in old maps and whispers of foundations hidden in the sage.
3. OUTLAWS IN THE MESAS: A FRONTIER THAT STAYED WILD
In the 1880s, the mesas straddling the Colorado–Oklahoma border were a perfect hideout for outlaws. Stories tell of small camps tucked into the rocks, hidden corrals, and caves stocked with supplies. Some accounts insist that makeshift saloons and brothels operated in the high country, serving men on the run. Whether myth or truth, the region’s remoteness made it a magnet for bandits who slipped back and forth across the state line. The land still feels like the last breath of the Old West — wild enough that nothing was ever fully verified, and nothing was ever fully disproven.
4. A SEA MONSTER FOUND IN THE PRAIRIE
In 1939, after heavy rains eroded a clay bank near Pritchett, Fred Roth stumbled onto something extraordinary: the nearly complete skeleton of a giant plesiosaur from the Cretaceous ocean that once covered the Great Plains. For a moment, the prairie opened a window into the deep past — and a marine predator that had no business being in Colorado.
5. THE CANYON THAT REMEMBERS WHAT WE FORGOT
In the far southern reaches of Baca County, Picture Canyon rises out of the prairie like a hidden world. Its sandstone walls are covered with petroglyphs carved by ancient peoples: spirals, animals, hunting scenes, and symbols whose meanings are still debated. Some are tucked high on the cliffs, others hidden in narrow alcoves where the light only reaches them at certain hours of the day. Walking through Picture Canyon feels less like stepping into a place where the past still echoes, quietly but insistently, across the stone.
6. A SOLAR CALENDAR CARVED IN ROCK
At Crack Cave in Picture Canyon, sunlight pierces into a narrow fissure only during the equinoxes, illuminating symbols and grooves carved centuries ago. Whether it was a spiritual site or an astronomical tool, its precision still stuns visitors who make the sunrise pilgrimage twice a year.
7. A LANDSCAPE REBORN AFTER DISASTER
After the Dust Bowl tore through the region in the 1930s, the federal government bought up ruined farms and slowly restored them to native grassland. What is now the Comanche National Grassland is essentially a vast ecological recovery project — a man-made return to wilderness.
8. A TORNADO THAT ENTERED THE HISTORY BOOKS
On May 18, 1977, Baca County was struck by one of the most powerful storms in Colorado history: an F4 tornado that roared out of the Oklahoma Panhandle, grew nearly a quarter-mile wide, and carved a destructive 9-mile path across the prairie. It caused millions in damage yet miraculously spared every life. Nearly 50 years later, it remains the only F4 tornado ever officially recorded in Colorado.
9. TWO BUTTES: THE SMALL TOWN WITH A GIANT MEMORY
In 2010, near the little village of Two Buttes in northern Baca County, a group of teenagers poking around a trash dump made an unbelievable discovery: boxes of documents containing the entire recorded history of the town — letters, official acts, everything. Two Buttes now houses one of the most important archival collections in the United States. Not bad for a place that today has barely thirty residents.
10. STONES FROM OUTER SPACE
Baca County has produced meteorite finds and rare mineral specimens documented by geologists. It’s one of the few places in Colorado where discoveries from deep space have literally landed on the soil.
11. GEOLOGY MORE COMPLEX THAN MEETS THE EYE
Researchers studying minerals and rock formations have repeatedly returned to Baca County for its unique specimens. For scientists, it’s a quiet treasure chest — a place where strange minerals, fossil-rich layers, and unexpected geological quirks still appear.
12. THE PLAINS COME ALIVE IN STRANGE WAYS
Every year, the county sees sudden surges of wildlife activity: mass movements of tarantulas in late summer, unexpected bird migrations funneled through the grasslands, and seasonal bursts of insect life that seem to appear out of nowhere. Even lifelong residents are sometimes caught off guard.
Photo by Cheryl Porter
>>> Photography by C Porter
