17152 Highway 142

Description

Water Rights~River frontage~Year-round access~No Covenants~No HOA! 97 water shares from the San Luis Peoples Ditch! This property consists of 2 farms! One farm already has a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom ranch house with several outbuildings. The second farm has room to build an additional home if desired. Situated in south-central Colorado, not far from the New Mexico border, you are offered a rare opportunity to own a heritage quality one-of-a-kind 128+/- acre Farm/Ranch in the San Luis Valley of Colorado, the world's highest Alpine Valley. Improvements included with this farm are a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home, several outbuildings including loafing sheds, hay storage, and chicken coop. The property is fenced and cross-fenced. GMU 83 - OVER THE COUNTER LICENSES: Cow Elk Archery Either Sex Archery Bull Rifle (2nd or 3rd Rifle Season) Fall Turkey Bear - Concurrent Rifle (you would also need to have an Elk or Deer license that must match one unit listed on your bear license.) This is a great combination of farm and ranch property and has historically been utilized for irrigated grazing and hay production ground with a small portion of dryland grass. The property includes about 30 acres of grass/alfalfa, green sub-irrigated meadows to the south that can handle about 50+ head of mother cows on a typical year, and a few acres of dry grazing land. Flood irrigation is also utilized on a good portion of the farm. This property is 100% usable. All but 2.5 acres of property, where the building improvements are located, can be under grass/alfalfa! This property is well watered, with Colorado's #1 Senior Water Rights off of the San Luis People's Ditch, 97 shares total, and is a gravity-fed irrigation system (acequias)in one of the oldest communities in Colorado. Serving the village of San Luis de la Culebra before Colorado was a Territory. These water rights are the first and most senior water rights to be given in the entire state of Colorado! Each share is dated April 10, 1852. The pioneer settlers of Colorado originally dug the Peoples ditch. More History on these historical water rights: The San Luis Peoples' Ditch is the oldest irrigation ditch in Colorado in continuous operation. It is representative of organized irrigation efforts initiated by the Spanish in the Southwest. The ditch is located outside the town of San Luis in southern Colorado at an elevation of 8,000. Culebra Creek, originating from high in the mountains to the south and east of town, furnishes an adequate supply of water to the canal. Today, the San Luis Peoples' Ditch is about 4 miles long and used to water approximately 1,600 acres of livestock feed (such as alfalfa) and garden plots. A new steel and concrete diversion and headgate structure was added in 1969 to replace the original headgates. Spanish-American settlers from New Mexico founded San Luis in 1851. The ditch is said to have been laid out in 1851 or 1852 by digging a small trench with a shovel and letting the water follow. A wooden plow was then used to enlarge the trench to a size sufficient for carrying water to the fields nearby. Land along the ditch was divided into narrow strips so that each land owner would have an irrigated field and land for grazing and timber. Each settler was to receive a strip of land 100 varas wide adjoining the ditch.1 An additional strip of 100 varas was added for each family member. The narrow strips were originally 16 to 20 miles long and ran north and south across the valley. In 1890, the District Court of Costilla County awarded the San Luis Peoples' Ditch priority number one in water district 24 of water division 3. The allotment of 23 cubic feet per second for irrigation of 900 acres was dated April 10, 1952. Climate in San Luis, Colorado San Luis, Colorado gets 10 inches of rain, on average, per year. The US average is 38 inches of rain per year. San Luis averages 41 inches of snow per year. The US average is 28 inches of snow per year. On average, there are