The Life and Times of Lafayette Head

The Life and Times of Lafayette Head is a biography of a man whose name is tied to the earliest settlement of southern Colorado. The description credits him with a hand in the Mexican Conejos Land Grant of over two million acres, with starting the first church in Colorado, digging the second earliest irrigation ditch and building the second flour mill in the state. It adds that he served three years as a U.S. Marshal.

Outside sources give some of the same outline. Wikipedia says Head moved in 1854 into the lower San Luis Valley with about fifty Mexican families, was a pioneer in irrigation, and built one of the earliest flour mills in Colorado. It also says he served three years as U.S. Marshal for the northern district of New Mexico Territory, and that in 1859 he became Special Agent for the Ute and Jicarilla Apache Indians. He later became Colorado's first lieutenant governor, serving from November 1876 to January 1879 under Governor John Long Routt.

Our record for the book is limited to the description above. The publisher's old store page credits P. David Smith and Cynthia Simmelink Becker as the authors. We could not find a publication year, page count or table of contents from a source we could read, so we leave them out.

This book suits readers of Colorado and San Luis Valley history who want the story of one frontier figure rather than a survey. Anyone tracing Hispano settlement along the Conejos River, early irrigation, or the Ute agencies of the 1860s will find a name to follow. Local libraries and family historians in southern Colorado may also want it.