Garcia (1849?, 7,693 feet; on Costilla County B, .8 mile west of Colorado 159 and 18 miles south of San Luis) was originally called La Plaza de los Manzanares. According to local historians Olibama López Tushar and Virginia McConnell Simmons, this, not San Luis, is the oldest permanently occupied settlement in Colorado. Tushar wrote in The People of El Valle (1978) that her ancestors, Manuel and Pedro Manzanares, settled here in 1849 with their families. The plaza that once organized the community is lost among newer structures and adobe ruins.
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