Sidebar by Wendell Hutchinson
Local Lore – January 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
A beautiful woman lived in the upper end of the San Luis Valley. Her home was in the wooded timber area between Villa Grove and the top of Poncha Pass. I can remember the remains of the house along the south side of the highway. My great uncle Bailey pointed it out to me one day when we were chasing cows in that region.
Neighbors who knew this woman were Wesley DeCamp, Charlie Miller, Jake Barsch, John Fullenwider, Earl E. Wilson, Vic Anderson, and Clyde Tuttle. I don’t remember her real name but she had a cabin up there with a sizable garden. To get supplies she went to Villa Grove, Saguache ,or Poncha Springs. She always rode a white horse and dressed in flowing white robes. She was well-known for riding at a fast gallop.
On one memorable day, Bailey Hutchinson and Burt Burnett were coming down off the Marshall Pass Range onto what is now Highway 285 in a snowstorm. They were hunched over their horses with their hats pulled down to protect their eyes and face from the snow and biting wind. All of a sudden this woman came up the road in front of them at a fast speed and rode right between the two riders. She startled both horses with her long, flapping robes. The horses jumped sideways, and Bailey and Burt got dumped on the ground.
The woman never uttered a word or checked her speed. Instead, she hastened up the pass, out of sight with her supplies tied behind her saddle. Bailey and Burt got up, knocked the snow off their hats, then got back on their horses and continued on home.
Nobody seems to remember when the woman disappeared or where she went. People simply didn’t see her anymore. Some suspected foul play. Years later, people often talked about how she was always galloping by at a rapid rate, and their stories about her took on a more mysterious tone.
Who was she? And what happened to her?
Some old timers still think they see her ghostly form quickly vanishing into the forest near her old cabin.
