Costilla County sits inside the Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area

Costilla County is part of something with a formal name: the Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area. Congress recognized this region in 2009. It covers more than three thousand square miles of south-central Colorado, spanning Costilla, Conejos, and Alamosa counties in the San Luis Valley.

A National Heritage Area is not a park, and it is not a layer of zoning or property rules. It does not change who owns land or who governs it. Instead it is a designation that recognizes a region’s shared history and culture, and helps local partners tell that story and care for important sites. In this valley, that story braids together Native nations, Hispano land-grant villages, soldiers, ranchers, and later settlers.

For someone living in or visiting Costilla County, the heritage area is mostly a guide to what is worth seeing and understanding. It ties together places like the town of San Luis and Fort Garland into one connected story of how people came to this high valley and stayed.

To explore the sites and the history behind them, start with the National Park Service pages for the Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area.