About 65 million years ago, dinosaurs roamed the canyon.
Roque camped for several days at the junction of Tapacito Wash and Largo Canyon. They called the campsite Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe. From there they engaged in one of the largest battles of the campaign, killing 25 Navajos on the ridge above them, and then, battle weary, he decided to pack it up and go back to Santa Fe. Now, amazingly enough, my neighbor, Beth Truby, lives almost on top of their campsite. Roque's journal is published in a book called "The Navajos in 1705" by Rick Hendricks and John P. Wilson.
The Spanish army came back several times to subdue the Navajos, but in a few years the Spaniards were a much smaller problem than the indigenous raiders from the north, who seem to have been eager to trade Navajo slaves for horses. The Navajos built the pueblitos to have places to hide from the marauders. Then in 1764 near Abique a group of Navajos suprised and killed a war party of Utes. The Utes declared war on the Navajos and it was soon after that the Navajos decided to move farther west. Or at least, this is the story I have at present.
The Kaimes and Trubys have been around a very long time. The Truby family used to have a stage stop on the old road (before HWY 44 or 550) from Santa Fe to Durango. It is shown on the 1912 map in "New Mexico in Maps". The Kaime family has been here since the mid-1840's.
The Counselors were out here raising sheep in the 1920's and 30's, but then the Depression came along and they thought it smarter to move to the State Highway (HWY 44 must have been built by then) and run the trading post, which they bought from a fellow named Haynes. Ann Counselor wrote a book about the era called "Wild, Wooly, and Wonderful" copyrighted in 1954. She tells of the winter of the Great Snow, when 3 feet of snow fell on a November night. Thousands of sheep and cattle starved to death. It is a good read and she describes the area very well.
The oldest wing of the Largo Canyon
School was completed in 1954, according to the plumbing
inspection tags we found. Two more classrooms, a library and
kitchen were added at some point. In 1983 the new gymnasium was
constructed, but in 1983 or 1984, the school closed. It had been
deeded to the school district and went up for auction. It passed
through a number of hands before we bought it in 1997 from George
Strimbu.
We have got a lot of our response to our page from former students and area residents, but we are always looking for more pictures and information.
If you are an alumni of the school, I will be happy to put a link to you from this page.