[2] Located at the southeast corner of Colorado, the county shares state borders with Kansas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.

Prior to the 1880s there was little activity in the county, other than along the Cutoff Branch of the Santa Fe Trail that crosses its extreme southeastern corner.

The arrival of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1926 created new towns and a population increase.

The Dust Bowl arrived in the 1930s, with Baca County being one of the hardest hit areas.

Part of this effort was the purchase of cultivated land by the government in order to return it to grassland.

Today the U.S. Forest Service supervises 220,000 acres of Comanche National Grassland which was purchased in the 1930s.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife maintains the recreational areas at Two Buttes Lake and Turk's Pond.

On May 18, 1977, an F4 tornado struck the southeastern portion of Baca County, causing an estimated $2.5 million in damage.