El Rito is a small community of about 1,000 people located on the bank - PDF document

El Rito El Rito is a small community o
El Rito El Rito is a small community of about 1,000 people located on the banks of El Rito Colorado, a tributary to the Chama River. Historians have written very little on this community, but its history is highly significant. During the second half of the 18th Century Spanish authorities in Santa Fe fostered the settlement of the Chama area and early in the 19th the community was well established as evidenced by land grant documents from 1824. El Rito quickly grew to become a substantial village. Census data from the 1845 indicate that the population was near 1,500. By mid-19th Century maps specify that El Rito area consisted of five distinctive plazas located one to three miles from each other. The largest and northernmost was called El Poblazón, present-day El Rito. South one could find Plaza del Medio, Plaza de los Espinozas, Plaza de los Atencios, and Plaza de la Casita (La Casita). Today only El Rito and Placitas (Plaza del Medio) survive. Most settlers engaged in rural activities, but also actively traded with Indian groups, such as Jicarilla, Ute, Pueblo, and others. This trade was mostly illegal, yet it offered great opportunity for economic advancement. Census data from the 1880s and 1890s indicate that some El Riteños had indeed benefitted. Pedro Jaramillo was the wealthiest individual in the region with a property assessed at over $20,000 in 1890.The community continued to grow and became important enough that by the beginnings of the 20th Century it became the site of the Spanish American Normal School, which today is part of Northern New Mexico College.