[1]: 33–36 Irrigation and farms were first established on the west bank of the Rio Grande as these farmers were accustomed to do in the broader river valley upstream of Mesa del Contadero where they had come from.
In July 1862 a great flood, in this narrower valley with a faster moving river, washed most of these farms and irrigation ditches away.
[1]: 78–89–91 San Ygnacio de la Alamosa was established on land occupied by the Warm Springs or Tchihende (Mimbreño) Apache.
These Apache lands extended east and west of the Rio Grande, south of the Mesa del Contadero and north of Dona Ana.
As early as June 8–9, 1860, settlers at San Ygnacio de la Alamosa wrote a certification of the theft of 12 Oxen, 2 mules, 4 burros by Apache.
[1]: 33, n.112 In April 1860, Navajo raiders with herds of thousands of sheep stolen north of Fort Craig, on the east side of the Rio Grande, fleeing pursuit by detachments of U. S. Army Mounted Rifles detachments, attempted crossings of the Rio Grande at Canyon del Muerto (now known as McRae Canyon), near San Ygnacio de la Alamosa.
The pursuit of the Army included the involvement of the towns local militia that was stationed on the west bank of the Rio Grande, blocking the Navajo from crossing the river ford at the mouth of Canyon del Muerto.
[1]: 36–38, 134–139 Following the Bascom Affair the Chiricahua Apache under Cochise seeking revenge for the killing of his relatives by the U. S. Army, allied with the Mimbreños who were fighting the intrusion of American miners in their territory at Pinos Altos.
The Apache soon fell on the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach stations and coaches west of the Rio Grande to the San Pedro River, destroying several of them and killing employees.
[1]: 42–48, 54–56, 60, 73–76 That same year, a number of the citizens of Canada Alamosa, moved down the Rio Grande to where Palomas Creek had its confluence with the river.
[1]: 55–56 Fort McRae and its garrison would provide its protection and economic benefits to citizens of the towns over the years of its operation until it was closed on October 30, 1876.
It is now underneath decades of deposits of silt accumulated in Elephant Butte Reservoir that had submerged the site of the settlement by as much as 100 feet of water since the 1920s.