36°07′52″N 105°45′32″W / 36.1311359°N 105.7589053°W
The Las Trampas Land Grant was awarded in 1751 by the colonial government of Spain to twelve Hispano families. The community of Las Trampas, New Mexico was founded the same year. The grant consisted of 28,132 acres (11,385 ha) of land on the western slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The settlers served as a buffer on the frontiers of New Mexico to fend off Comanche raids. By the mid 19th century the population of the grant area had grown to about 1,500 in nine different farming and ranching settlements.
The farming land in the grant was owned by individual settlers and their descendants and could be bought and sold, but most of the land in the grant area was held in common and used for grazing and timber. After the U.S. conquest of New Mexico in 1846, Anglo-American and Hispano land speculators and attorneys used the U.S. legal system to get ownership of the common land. In 1903, the common lands in their entirety were sold to private owners with the settlers on the grant receiving only a pittance of the proceeds. Following legal struggles, the former common lands became part of the Carson National Forest in 1926. Controversies regarding the uses of the land by the descendants of the original settlers continue into the 21st century.
Although not one of the largest land grants, the legal and political history of the Las Trampas Land Grant is illustrative of land grant issues in New Mexico and southern Colorado.