 The market in 2023 | |
| Founded | 1857 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Colorado |
R&R Market is a general merchandise and grocery store in San Luis, Colorado. Built in 1857, it is the oldest continually operating business in the state. [1] [2] [3]
| The market in 2023 | |
| Founded | 1857 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Colorado |
R&R Market is a general merchandise and grocery store in San Luis, Colorado. Built in 1857, it is the oldest continually operating business in the state. [1] [2] [3]
Dario Gallegos opened R&R Market with $452 in May 1857. The business was established by a family of Spanish conquistadors. [4] [5] The store was originally made of 25-inch adobe bricks and has a foundation of rocks with mud mortar. [6] R&R Market survived an attack by Native Americans in 1858 and fires in 1895 and 1945 that almost destroyed it. The store's brick walls were eventually reinforced with stucco, concrete, and plaster. [5] [2] The store building was constructed in territorial adobe style. [6]
Gallegos's descendants managed R&R Market until it was put up for sale in 2017. [5] [7]
In early 2022, the market was sold to the Acequia Institute, a non-profit organization based in Viejo San Acacio, Colorado. The institute has changed the business's name to San Luis People's Market and hopes to convert it to a community-based, worker-led food cooperative. [8] [9] The market's Facebook page, in a July 25, 2023 post, announced that the market was closing temporarily "for major remodeling and environmental cleanup involving asbestos, lead paint, and possibly black mold abatement." [10]
The San Luis Valley is a region in south-central Colorado with a small portion overlapping into New Mexico. The valley is approximately 122 miles (196 km) long and 74 miles (119 km) wide, extending from the Continental Divide on the northwest rim into New Mexico on the south. It contains 6 counties and portions of 3 others. It is an extensive high-elevation depositional basin of approximately 8,000 square miles (21,000 km2) with an average elevation of 7,664 feet (2,336 m) above sea level. The valley is a section of the Rio Grande Rift and is drained to the south by the Rio Grande, which rises in the San Juan Mountains to the west of the valley and flows south into New Mexico. The San Luis Valley has a cold desert climate but has substantial water resources from the Rio Grande and groundwater.
Albertsons Companies, Inc. is an American grocery company founded and headquartered in Boise, Idaho.
The Town of Crestone is a Statutory Town in Saguache County, Colorado. According to the 2020 United States Census, the town's population was 141. Crestone is located at the foot of the western slope of the Sangre de Cristo Range, in the northern part of the San Luis Valley. Crestone was platted in 1880 by George Adams, owner of the neighboring Luis Maria Baca Grant No. 4. In the 1970s, the Baca Grande land development was established on the lands of the Baca Grant to the south and west. Several hundred homes have been built there.
Costilla County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,499. The county seat is San Luis, the oldest continuously occupied town in Colorado.
Blanca is a Statutory Town located in Costilla County, Colorado, United States. The town population was 322 at the 2020 census. Blanca is located in the enormous San Luis Valley.
Fort Garland is an unincorporated town, a post office, and a census-designated place (CDP) located in and governed by Costilla County, Colorado, United States. The Fort Garland post office has the ZIP Code 81133. At the United States Census 2020, the population of the Fort Garland CDP was 464.
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An acequia or séquia is a community-operated watercourse used in Spain and former Spanish colonies in the Americas for irrigation. Acequias are found in parts of Spain, the Andes, northern Mexico, and the modern-day American Southwest.
Safeway, Inc. is an American supermarket chain founded by Marion Barton Skaggs in April 1915 in American Falls, Idaho. The chain provides grocery items, food and general merchandise and features a variety of specialty departments, such as bakery, delicatessen, floral and pharmacy, as well as Starbucks coffee shops and fuel centers. It is a subsidiary of Albertsons after being acquired by private equity investors led by Cerberus Capital Management in January 2015. Safeway's primary base of operations is in the Western United States with some stores located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern Seaboard. The subsidiary is headquartered in Pleasanton, California.
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The Colorado Pacific Rio Grande Railroad is a class III railroad operating in south-central Colorado. It runs on 154 miles of former Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad tracks on three lines radiating from Alamosa and interchanges with the Union Pacific Railroad in Walsenburg. Much of the railroad is located in the San Luis Valley. In 2022, it was purchased by Stefan Soloviev.
San Acacio is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place (CDP) located in and governed by Costilla County, Colorado, United States. The population of the San Acacio CDP was 56 at the 2020 United States census. The Sanford post office serves San Acacio postal addresses.
San Patricio is a very small community in Lincoln County, in the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is located on the Rio Ruidoso and U.S. Highway 70, between the communities of Hondo and Glencoe. It is just east of the Lincoln National Forest.
The Rio Grande Scenic Railroad of Colorado was a heritage railway that operated from 2006 to 2019 in and around the San Luis Valley as a subsidiary of the San Luis and Rio Grande Railroad. The heritage railroad ceased operating excursions following a wildfire that damaged some of their facilities, as well as the parent company SLRG entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late 2019.
Rancho Santa Clara del Norte was a 13,989-acre (56.61 km2) Mexican land grant on the Oxnard Plain in present-day Ventura County, California. It was granted in 1837 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to Juan María Sánchez.
Lucky's Market is a brand of supermarkets that are being used by two independent and unrelated regional supermarket chains, LM Acquisition Co. LLC in Colorado and Lucky's Market Ohio in Ohio.
The San Luis Hills are a group of small mountain ranges in Conejos and Costilla counties in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado. The individual mountain ranges that make up the San Luis Hills include the Fairy Hills, the Brownie Hills, the Piñon Hills, and the South Piñon Hills. The San Luis Hills' highest point is Flat Top, elevation 9,206 feet
The Los Caminos Antiguos Scenic and Historic Byway is a 129-mile (208 km) Back Country Byway and Colorado Scenic and Historic Byway located in Alamosa, Conejos, and Costilla counties, Colorado, USA. The byway explores the historic San Luis Valley of south-central Colorado including Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve; the Old Spanish National Historic Trail; historic Fort Garland, San Luis (San Luis de la Culebra), the oldest town in Colorado; and the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad.
The Sangre de Cristo Land Grant in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico consists of 1,000,000 acres (4,000 km2) of mostly arid land. It was awarded by the government of New Mexico to the Beaubien family in 1843. The land grant was originally settled by Hispanics from New Mexico. Since the incorporation of the area of the grant into the United States in 1848, legal disputes between the descendants of the Hispanic settlers and Anglo ranchers about ownership of and access to some of the land in the grant area have been frequent and continued into the 21st century.
Shirley Romero Otero is a Chicana activist who co-founded the Land Rights Council in 1977 to regain the rights for heirs of the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant. She is an educator and leader in the San Luis Valley region. She is the director of the Move Mountains Youth Project and sits on the board of directors of the Acequia Institute.