{"id":106768,"date":"2016-02-11T04:48:12","date_gmt":"2016-02-11T11:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/la-plata-county-historic-driving-tour-focuses-on-old-fort-lewis-campus-aspaas-homestead-breen-bui\/"},"modified":"2016-02-11T04:48:12","modified_gmt":"2016-02-11T11:48:12","slug":"la-plata-county-historic-driving-tour-focuses-on-old-fort-lewis-campus-aspaas-homestead-breen-bui","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/la-plata-county-historic-driving-tour-focuses-on-old-fort-lewis-campus-aspaas-homestead-breen-bui\/","title":{"rendered":"La Plata County historic driving tour focuses on Old Fort Lewis campus, Aspaas homestead, Breen building"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\"
JERRY McBRIDE\/Durango Herald file photo<br><br>Southwest Conservation Corps members reflect in a window<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Three sites along Colorado Highway 140, including the Old Fort Lewis campus, will be the target of the La Plata County Historic Preservation Review Commission\u2019s third annual historic driving tour in May.<\/p>\n

Plans for this year\u2019s tour were modified for less driving time, and stops include the historic Aspaas Ranch and the former Breen Grange Hall in addition to the Old Fort, which is 16 miles southwest of where the college now sits on Rim Drive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe entire history of La Plata County flows from the military presence of the Old Fort,\u201d said Commission Chairman Andrew Gulliford. \u201cIt is so deeply a part of the history and the county and the area, but most folks don\u2019t know much about it. Our goal is to have people understand the history of the county. We haven\u2019t been on the dryside yet, so this year, that\u2019s where we\u2019re going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now used for agriculture purposes and community workshops, the Old Fort opened in 1880 as an Army fort and operated as such until 1911. Other incarnations of the campus included an Indian boarding school, a high school and a two-year college before a Durango branch for Fort Lewis was authorized by the governor in 1954.<\/p>\n

North of the original campus is the Aspaas homestead belonging to one of the oldest families in La Plata County that formerly served as an officer\u2019s quarters. Norwegian immigrant Annetta Johnson Aspaas and her husband were among the first European settlers in the San Juan Basin.<\/p>\n

The site is also home to historic, culturally modified \u2013 or \u201cpeeled\u201d \u2013 ponderosa trees along the La Plata River, which participants will be able to see on a walking tour.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor native cultures, in winter in times of dietary stress, you could pull back the bark and eat part of the tree, or peel it more deeply and use it for medicine,\u201d Gulliford said. \u201cOnce you scar the tree and remove the original bark, it stays that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Breen Community Building, now a community center, was formerly known as Breen Grange Hall.<\/p>\n

Guest speakers and an itinerary for the tour are forthcoming.<\/p>\n

jpace@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

driving, more sightseeing this year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":106769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[13,475,83,2229],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-106768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-la-plata-county-colorado","tag-mancos","tag-old-fort-lewis-campus"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106768"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=106768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}