Celebrating 175 Years
The Official
2023 Costilla-Amalia Reunion
Website
WELCOME!
The Costilla-Amalia Reunion Committee delivered an awesome community reunion in 2019 that brought
2,000 people to our community.
We promised you yet another reunion celebration
and we aim to deliver!
Get ready for the 2023 Costilla-Amalia Reunion
celebrating 175 years on
August 4-6, 2023
at the Plaza de Arriba.
Get all your information here!
Countdown
The Reunion Lineup & Events Schedule is HERE
Plan your weekend of fun and gathering with family and friends.
The 2019 Costilla-Amalia Reunion
Highlight Video
Relive the 2019 Reunion featuring the parade and festivities at
the Plaza de Arriba
in the heart of Costilla, New Mexico.
Garcia, Colorado
Located in the far Southeast corner of Colorado’s San Luis Valley and bordering the NM State line, Garcia was once part of the sprawling network of Rio de Costilla Valley settlements. Originally known as La Plaza de Los Manzanares it was comprised of two other plazas as one moves north, La Plaza de Los Madriles and La Placita de Los Cordovas. The histories of Garcia and Costilla are so intermingled that Costilla County in Colorado is named for Costilla the village in NM. Costilla was once a part of Colorado Territory until a surveying error was discovered which gave Costilla back to NM. When Costilla which predated Garcia by a few years was given back to NM Garcia thus became the oldest settlement in Colorado. Today Garcia is a collection of homes, some abandoned, many of old adobe and some which are still utilized by families of the earliest settlers. Such was the case for field worker and crew leader Flor Madril of Garcia and La Plaza de Los Madriles. As Georgianna West, the midwife, is a legend to the residents of Jaroso, Amalia and Costilla such is the case for Flor Madril from Garcia, one of the hardest working summer crew leaders and workers ever to emerge from the area. It is said that if you wanted summer work in the fields and could keep up with her as she toiled along side, you were something special. Bearing witness to this are many teens from the area who earned their summer money working with her and for her.
Jaroso, Colorado
There were no settlers at Jaroso until 1890 when a group of Mormons established a small settlement about two miles North and West of Jaroso called Eastdale. The town plat for Jaroso was filed in 1914. An investment firm from Omaha, Nebraska worked with Costilla Estates Development to bring a group of Seventh Day Adventist settlers to Jaroso. By the spring of 1915 twenty-five to thirty families had settled there. It became a commercial center for a vast area of Northern New Mexico. Raising of field crops and livestock was at a peak. Just as the town was peaking the boom came crashing down. The Merchants Bank and the nearby Mesita State Bank failed in 1919. The General Store at Jaroso burned to the ground and the San Luis Valley Southern Railroad which ran from Blanca to Jaroso and had plans to go as far south as Questa, NM filed for bankruptcy. In the 1920’s there was a slight upswing as an investor purchased the railroad and began a bus and freight service from Jaroso to Taos, NM. The depression of the 1930’s quickly brought that venture to an end. The population of Jaroso continued to decline but Jaroso survived. Passenger train service ended after WWII in 1946 and the entire railroad line was but a memory after 1958. Closing of the Anderson’s store at Jaroso would follow but to this day it’s post office still survives. Some large farms still survive growing mainly alfalfa and some barley. Jaroso a testament of a hardy people many with New Mexican roots.