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In the past week new road signs have sprung up along county roads and private drives. One that puzzles me is on the way to the post office at the corner of Paseo de Oñate and what I call the Valdez Bridge Road. Officials call it Industrial Park Road on the west side of the intersection and Fairview Lane on the east.
The sign proclaims a boundary for the Bartolomé Sánchez Land Grant. Does anyone know who Sánchez was and when he made his claim?
I found an on-line posting in a geology website from a woman who said she was a descendent of Maria Francisca Sánchez. That woman married Jose Guadalupe Naranjo and moved to Colorado. Sánchez was born about 1830 in this area.
The writer said she had a copy of the grant registration from the early 1900's. I found it listed in the grants adjudicated before 1904 under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that annexed this part of the country to the United States.
It said the original claim had been for 10,000 acres and 4,469 had been allowed.
The next reference I found was to the Bartolo Me Land Grant corporation. It was apparently organized in 1941. A group using the name today says it has 3,300 acres for development in Española and Rio Arriba county.
