Fort Talpa (Huerfano County, Colorado)

Huerfano County · Colorado · Indian Wars

Quick BriefFort Talpa was a Spanish adobe post built in the 1820s to protect settlers from Native American attacks. By the 1870s it was incorporated into the town of Huerfano Cañon and remained standing into the twentieth century.

Spanish Colonial

History & Significance

Fort Talpa was a Spanish adobe defensive outpost constructed during the 1820s in Huerfano Canyon as protection against possible attacks by Native Americans. The building traditionally served as a defensive structure for Hispano settlers and measured seventy-four feet by forty-six feet with walls two feet thick at ground level.

By the 1870s the structure was functioning as a store and community center for the town of Huerfano Cañon, later renamed Talpa. In 1874 Victor and Juliana Montoya settled the land; in 1908 Victor Montoya sold the ranch to Asperidon and Louise Faris, a Lebanese couple who used the adobe building as a home, general store, and post office.

The fort was still standing in 1941 next to the newer town of Farisita's general store. The Montoya Ranch, which became locally known as Fort Talpa, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 3, 2012.