El Rito/Latir
Early Area History
The El Rito/Latir areas were first visited by Paleo-Native Americans some 12,000 years ago. Numerous arrowheads of varying sizes have been found in the area giving evidence of these first visitors. Folsom Man occupied the general area during the last Ice Age and shaped one of the first forms of technology, the Folsom Point. It was hafted onto a wooden spear and used to hunt ancient buffalo, woolly mammoths, and mastodons. The Anasazi, ancestors of the Pueblo Indians, were one of the earliest native groups to cross the Sangre De Christo Mountains around 900 AD.
In 1540 Francisco Vasquez de Coronado led an expedition into New Mexico in search of the lost "City of Gold" but instead found Jicarilla Apaches and Moache Utes roaming the surrounding hills. The advent of the 17th century saw the first permanent Spanish settlements in New Mexico. Taos, and to the north, Questa, Cerro, Costilla, and Amalia, were among these first agricultural communities. By 1821, the Santa Fe Trail opened up trade between New Mexico and Missouri merchants, who began moving westward bringing in the first waves of Anglos. Today, Taos County prides itself on its rich Pueblo, Hispanic and Anglo, tri-cultural traditions.
El Rito/Latir in "the 1960s"
El Rito/Latir prior to the 1960s was home to a handful of Hispanic farming families and served as a gateway into the hunting and fishing grounds of what is now called the Latir Wilderness. The cultural movement, led by those identified as Hippies in the latter part of the 1960s, altered that life-style. Some hippies expressed their desire for change with a communal lifestyle, by renouncing corporate influence, consumerism, and the Vietnam War. New Mexico became a place of communes, two of which were established in El Rito/Latir. The Lorien and Lila communes became the basis of the present day El Rito/Latir communities. El Rito/Latir were among the first incubators of the holistic movement with its organic food, earth shoes, tie-dye clothing, deep ecology values, and alternative health care. As these Hippies matured, they took their place as the vanguard of what we now call the Cultural Creative Movement. Word about El Rito's beauty and near-magical qualities slowly seeped out, and has since attracted those who are strongly aware of the problems of the whole planet (e.g. global warming, overpopulation, lack of ecological sustainability, pollution, and depletion of fossil fuels) and are moving toward their resolution.
Members of those first communes are still here. They have since bought land, built homes, and established families. We are now seeing the second generation of children emerging from this era.
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El Rito/Latir Today The Cultural Creative centers typically include Mt. Shasta, Sedona, Telluride, Santa Fe, and Taos. To the outside world, El Rito / Latir are the "undiscovered" diamonds among these areas. Blessed with cultural and physical amenities, El Rito/Latir is indeed a unique location with an extremely limited carrying capacity. | |||||||||
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Our family migrated from Great Falls, Virginia, a Washington, D.C. suburb in 1994. We were a home-schooling family and networked our way into El Rito. Lia, my wife is a nurse practioner and has maintained an international wellness and homeopathic practice for the last 30 years. I am El Rito/Latir's only resident real estate broker, and one of the interpreters of its intrinsic qualities that may escape the casual observer. El Rito/Latir is relatively undiscovered. It is part of an area that has long been a trading outpost and transmigration point for over a thousand years. Most of the land is government-owned. Taos County Subdivision regulations are becoming more stringent. Smart sustainable growth is being promoted to conserve our limited water resource. Now is the time to take advantage of a rapidly-disappearing opportunity. Whether you're single, a family, or a retiree, the El Rito community is well worth investigating, if clean air and water, beauty, deep values, and nature are important to you. Private land is at a premium. However, land prices here remain relatively low. EcoRealty invites you to explore our current offerings and take your place in the continuing saga known as El Rito. Come to El Rito – the land were myths can still be created. Come and begin or continue your own myth in this one-of-a-kind setting. | ||||||||
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The following amenities are awaiting you:
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El Rito/Latir is home to wide range of individuals with varying backgrounds. They include:
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