Written accounts of the Tierra Amarilla locality by pathfinding Spanish friars in 1776 described it as suitable for pastoral and agricultural use.

[5]: 352–353  The grant holders were unable to maintain a permanent settlement due to "raids by Utes, Navajos and Jicarilla Apaches" until early in the 1860s.

In 1880 Thomas Catron sold some of the grant to the Denver and Rio Grande Railway for the construction of their San Juan line and a service center at Chama.

[6] The territorial legislature located Rio Arriba's county seat in Las Nutrias and renamed the village in 1880.

[5]: 352–353  The Denver and Rio Grande Railway's 1881 arrival at Chama,[9] about ten miles to the north, had profound effects on the development of the region by bringing the area out of economic and cultural isolation.

[6] This structure was demolished to make way for the present one, which was built in 1917 and gained notoriety fifty years later when it was the location of a gunfight between land rights activists and authorities.

[11] The Alianza Federal de Mercedes, led by Reies Tijerina, raided the Rio Arriba County Courthouse in 1967.

Attempting to make a citizen's arrest of the district attorney "to bring attention to the unscrupulous means by which government and Anglo settlers had usurped Hispanic land grant properties," an armed struggle in the courthouse ensued resulting in Tijerina and his group fleeing to the south with two prisoners as hostages.

The National Guard, FBI and New Mexico State Police successfully pursued Tijerina, who was sentenced to less than three years.

[6] The layout of the villages, including the one that became Tierra Amarilla, do not follow the urban planning principles of the Laws of the Indies.