Stonewall Gap, CO

Stonewall Gap is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place located in and governed by Las Animas County, Colorado, United States. The 2020 census counted 66 residents. The Weston post office serves the area. The grant area was later owned by foreign investors who created the Maxwell Land Grant Company and attempted to expel the farmers, ranchers, and miners, both Anglos and Hispanics, who had settled on lands in the grant. Taken together, these details give a newcomer a usable picture of Stonewall Gap, where its history, geography, and current gathering places meet.

ATTRJeffrey Beall / CC BY 4.0

For Stonewall Gap, the memorable detail is the way older history and current gathering places share one local map. Stonewall Gap lies along Colorado State Highway 12 at a gap formed by the Middle Fork of the Purgatoire River through the 8,400 feet elevation Stonewall Ridge. Highway 12 leads east down the Purgatoire River valley 33 miles to Trinidad, the Las Animas county seat, and north over Cucharas Pass in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains 32 miles to La Veta.