The Pereas: a longtime Pagosa Country family

Photo courtesy John M. Motter
The Pagosa Lumber Company mill was one of the largest in Colorado. In this photograph takeacn from Reservoir Hill, the San Juan River is in the foreground and stacks of drying lumber and the mill are across the river on land now occupied by the high school, football field, etc.

Pedro “Pete” Perea was born July 1, 1895, in Edith, Colo. He died Oct. 27, 1975.

Sequiel L. “Zeke” Perea was born Nov. 17, 1901, at Edith. He was a brother of Pedro Perea and  Mrs. Pablito Young. He died in Pagosa Springs in November of 1979. He served as an Army private in WW I and WW II. He worked on the New Mexico Lumber Company railroad line between Edith and Pagosa.

Pete married Fedelia Chavez, a mother of two children, at Chama, N.M. in 1949. Their children were Joe Chavez, Gene Williams, Fidel Perea, Eddie Aldred, John Perea, Alex Perea, Gilbert Perea, Phil Perea, Martha Perea, Pete Perea and Arsenia Perea. Zeke also sharpened knives and played the violin with Mayor Ross Aragon’s father, Juan, who played the guitar.

Francisquita Perez, the wife of Ben Perez, was born in 1891 at Chamita, N.M., and died March 25, 1963. She married Ben at a site on Stollsteimer Creek near its junction with the Piedra River, April 26, 1924.

Ben Perez was born Nov. 5, 1890, at Blanco, N.M. He married Francisquita at Rosa, N.M. Rosa is now beneath a spot just south of the state park buildings, under the waters of Navajo Lake near the north end of the lake.

Elias Peterson was born in Skane, Sweden, in 1845. He came to the United States in 1875 and died in 1921 after moving to Archuleta County in 1901. He lived and ranched in the Chromo area and served as an Archuleta County Commissioner.

John Victor Peterson was born June 26, 1879, at Jakobstad, Finland. He came to the United States in 1898, and in 1914, moved to the Bayles community west of Pagosa Springs, where he ranched until his death in 1963. He married Goldie Bennett Dec. 20, 1910, in Pagosa Springs. His children were Alice Wilson, Stella Morrison, Lucille Conder, Aubrey Peterson,  Jack Peterson and Paul Peterson.

Leslie Louis Pim died in Pagosa Springs June 11, 1977, at the age of 92. He was born in Del Norte, Colo. on Oct. 26, 1884.

J.R. Pollard, a former Pagosa resident, died in November of 1927 at Redondo Beach, Calif. He was born July 6, 1847, at Dansville, Va. He first moved to Missouri, then Texas and New Mexico, and finally to Pagosa Springs.