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HISTORIC OVERVIEW The following section is taken from Baker (1977: 11, 16-11), and is a general cultural summary of both the Native-and EuroAmerican occupations of the region. Amore detailed consideration of the local prehistory and history have recently been prepared for Colorado Wesunore- land and may be found in Baker (1984). Prior to White settlement the North Fork Valley was part of the aboriginal territory of the Colorado or Eastern Ute Indians. This territory covered nearly all of Colorado westward to the Green River in eastern Utah and had been occupied by Ute Peoples since an unknown time in prehistory. The territory west of this point belonged to the Utah or Ilestern Ute Peoples. In west-central Colorado, Ute pre- history is rooted in a hunting and gathering lifestyle related to the Desert Cultural Tradition which reaches far into prehistory in the region, Although some isolated finds of artifacts relating to the Paleo-Indian tradition have been found in western Colorado, no sites fully at- tributable to such occupations have been reported (Jennings 1968: 15). Generally, evidence of prehistoric Indian occupation in mountainous regions, such as those of the • Gunnison Country, has been sparse and is generally be- lieved to represent seasonal exploitation of the environ- ment with little evidence of permanent year-round occupa- tions (.ister 1962: 45; and Schroeder 1953). Although White men, including the Dominguez-Escalante Ex- pedition, had penetrated into western Colorado in the post- contact period, the region was formally closed to settle- ment until the Utes had been removed from the region by the Federal Government in 1861.... The first White man to settle in the Paonia vicinity is said to have been Samuel Wade from the Gunnison area. He purportedly examined the newly abandoned reservation in the early fall of 1881 and subsequently took up land near an abandoned Indian village about ten miles east of the parcel claimed by Enos Hotchkiss. Another individual, Will Clarke, took up land next to Wade, and these two in- dividuals established a line between their properties which eventually became Grand Avenue'in Paonia. The Wade property extended one-half mile west from this point, and Clarke's extended the same distance to the east. Together these two parcels included most of the present area of Paonia. •