Pagosa Springs, COArchuleta County

Nestled deep in the San Juan National Forest is a rare "In-Holding" known as "Borns Lake". This extremely private ranch was homesteaded in 1890s by Henry Born. Henry & his family worked the ranch until 1960 when the Borns passed ownership of the Ranch to a publishing family from back east, who have owned and enjoyed this pristine setting ever since. Borns Lake Ranch has always afforded its owners a level of privacy and seclusion outside the view of the public. Here, wonderful memories can be created and enjoyed without the intrusion of any spectators. It is rare to find a property with the natural beauty, tranquility and solace offered at Borns Lake Ranch.

The ranch encompasses 155 acres totally surrounded by the San Juan National Forest. Borns Lake features 17 surface acres of mirrored glass Rocky Mountain water, a 3-tiered waterfall & a dramatic canyon with the West Fork of the San Juan River flowing through it.

From the shore of Borns Lake you can enjoy the reflections of the snow-capped peaks that surround you. From your row boat you'll look down through crystal clear mountain water to hundreds of hungry Brook and Rainbow Trout.

Hike to several waterfalls within the ranch as well as numerous creeks and streams. Or perhaps you enjoy scouting the ranch wildlife which includes Elk, Deer, Fox and even Mountain Goats and an occasional Big Horn Sheep. You can also hike out to a National Forest trail that leads to Rainbow Hot Springs and across the Continental Divide.

Whether you are looking for a family compound to enjoy making memories, a hunting lodge or a corporate retreat, you will not find anything as private & spectacular as Borns Lake Ranch.

History

Henry Borne, more often called Dutch Henry was an outlaw and one of the most prevalent horse thieves and cattle rustlers of the Old West. Henry was born to German immigrant parents on July 2, 1849, in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. In the 1860s he moved with his family to Montague, Michigan, where he worked as a lumberjack. Somewhere along the line he joined the Seventh Cavalry, but quit in the late 1860s. Shortly afterward, Borne was arrested at Fort Smith, Arkansas for stealing twenty government mules. He was sentenced to prison, but escaped just three months later.

By 1869 he had moved to Kansas where for the next six years he hunted buffalo and worked as a freighter in Kansas & eastern Colorado. In 1875, Dutch Henry emerged as the leader of a horse-stealing ring operating in a vast area from Kansas to Colorado, New Mexico to the Texas Panhandle. Although the actual number of Borne's followers is disputed, it has been estimated to be as many as 300. Henry specialized in Indian ponies and government mules, for which he found a lucrative market.

Demands that Dutch Henry be brought to justice increased. More than once he had managed to escape from jails and elude law officers, but in December 1878, Las Animas County Sheriff, R. W. Wootton, arrested him at Trinidad, Colorado. There, Borne was tried for stealing mules and ordered transferred to the Bent County Jail. However, Borne was acquitted in January 1879. Soon, he drifted on to Las Vegas, New Mexico where he was said to have been a member of the notorious Dodge City Gang. By that time, he had become so good at stealing horses, that one legend says that he once sold a sheriff his own recently stolen horse. There term Dutch Henry soon began to be known as a stolen horse.

Finally, the State of Arkansas finally caught up with him, putting him back in prison for the Fort Smith robbery years before. However, his time behind bars was apparently brief, as by the late 1880s he was known to have been prospecting at Summitville, Colorado and opened the successful Happy Thought Mine in Creede, Colorado.

In the 1890s he filed on 160 acres on the West Fork of the San Juan River twenty miles from Pagosa Springs, Colorado. The acreage would eventually become known as Borne's Lake. In July, 1900, Henry married Ida Dillabaugh and fathered four children. In his later years he talked little about his past and for seven years did not even keep a gun in his home. Borne died of pneumonia on January 10, 1921, and was buried at Pagosa Springs, Colorado.

Ida stayed on at the ranch raising their daughters. Her life as a ranching widow is best portrayed in her obituary written in The Pagosa Springs Sun upon her death in August 5, 1949. Many of the people mentioned in the obituary have future generations still living in Pagosa Springs - it is like "Heaven on Earth". It's easy to understand why the surnames mentioned below are prevalent families in the area today.