The story
Boggsville was the first non-military settlement in the Arkansas Valley after the Santa Fe Trail era — an adobe ranching and trading community founded by Thomas Boggs in 1866, and briefly the seat of Bent County. Kit Carson moved his family here in 1867, and it was at Boggsville that the old scout died in 1868.
When the railroad chose a townsite at Las Animas two miles north in 1873, Boggsville's reason to exist moved with it, and the settlement faded within a decade. Two of its great adobe houses survived as ranch buildings and have been carefully restored.
What remains today
The restored Boggs and Prowers adobe houses on the old townsite, interpreted as a historic site along the Santa Fe Trail corridor.
Questions from the field
- What is Boggsville known for?
- It was the Arkansas Valley's first permanent settlement after the fur-trade era, an early Bent County seat, and the place where Kit Carson spent his final year.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Boggsville — GPS-verified visits earn an inked stamp.
File a field report
Road conditions, what's still standing, what's gone — your report joins the record.
Add photographs
Credited, dated, and preserved as part of Boggsville's permanent record.
No field reports yet — sign in to file the first.
Sources consulted
- — USGS GNIS feature 195528
- — National Register of Historic Places — Boggsville Historic District
- — Bent County Historical Society