Hispanic America USA
                             How Concho Received its Name
                         Copyright 1996 - Present, All Rights reserved

              From the Historical Society of Concho, book entitled,

        "Concho, the Enchanted Pearl."

When the first settlers arrived in the Concho valley, they found a lot of shells all along
the Concho Creek. In those years water ran in the creek year-round.

The settlers called their new settlement, Conchas, a Spanish word meaning shells).

This name was known only among the early settlers themselves. When they referred to
that name, they knew what it was, and where it was.

New Mexican church records referred to the Conchas settlement as, "El Rio Colorado
Chiquito", The Little Colorado River. Perhaps the settlers, when they went to New Mexico to have their children baptized, or to be married, told the priest they lived near, or along, a small stream.

Sometime later the name was shortened to Concho, still sometimes referred
to by "old timers" as "El Concho".

The name Concho is not unusual since there is a Conchas Dam, New Mexico Concho County, Texas and a Concho, Canadian County, Oklahoma.

Don Presiliano Archunde is credited as being the first person to find the spring, later called Concho Spring. This was the first time that he was in this area, then a young man and single.

Later, after he had gone back to his home, what is now San Juan County, New Mexico USA, he married, thought about the nice spring, with an abundance of fresh, cold water, and decided
to bring his family to settle here permanently.

Which they did, and also sent word to other relatives about their new home.

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