Thomas Oliver Boggs first came to the region that is now southeastern Colorado and northern New Mexico in the early 1840s, working as a trader for his uncle, William Bent, at Bent’s Old Fort. The work suited him and he was a frequent visitor to the Bent families. During a visit to the Charles Bent home in Taos, then part of Mexico, he met and fell in love with the 14-year-old beauty, Rumalda Luna, of the powerful Taos family, the Jaramillos. She was also smitten. They married on May 22, 1846.
In 1858, Thomas partnered with Lucien B. Maxwell of Cimarron, New Mexico. Maxwell, through his marriage, controlled a massive land grant covering most of the territory in what is now northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. Each spring and summer, Boggs drove their shared herd of sheep and cattle to graze the fine Colorado grasslands.
He liked the Purgatoire River valley and recognized its potential for raising livestock and crops. His wife, Rumalda, owned 2,040 acres in the area, which she inherited from her great uncle, Cornelio Vigil upon his death during the Taos Revolt in 1847.
Thomas built a small house on the property in 1862 and began pasturing livestock. In 1866 he moved his family to Colorado and built a large L-shaped, seven-room adobe home on the west bank of the Purgatoire River. He built a trading store that serviced settlers in the area and travelers on the Santa Fe Trail. Before long, more settlers moved to the area and the ranching and agricultural settlement of Boggsville was born.
Though Boggs proved a successful farmer whose irrigated crops fed the U.S. Army troops at nearby Fort Lyon, he was at heart a sheep man. By 1872, he owned over 30,000 sheep and controlled much of the open range south of Boggsville. He also took a turn at politics. When Bent County was formed in 1870, Boggs served as the first sheriff. In 1871, he was elected to the Colorado territorial legislature. He and Rumalda were close friends with Kit and Josefa Carson – Josefa was Rumalda’s aunt. After Kit and Josefa died within a month of each other in 1868, he and Rumalda raised the Carson’s six youngest children as their own.
Boggs became disillusioned when the railroad came and diverted business to the new town of West Las Animas, causing Boggsville’s decline. His discontent grew when bungled congressional attempts to verify pre-existing claims after the Mexican-American War – including the giant Vigil and St. Vrain land grant – led to Rumalda’s portion of the land grant being challenged in court. In 1877, while fighting the legal battle, the frustrated Boggs moved his family to Clayton, New Mexico. When Rumalda’s title was finally re-confirmed six years later, he sold the Boggsville ranch to John Lee for $1,200. Boggs remained in New Mexico for the rest of his life. He and Rumalda were buried in an old prairie cemetery near Clayton. Untended for years, their graves are now lost to the prairie sands.