Vigil, José Urbano, 1865-1915

Denver attorney Charles S. Vigil has given the University of Colorado’s Western Historical Collection a historically valuable collection of papers related to public service and political activity in Colorado’s Las Animas County. The more significant papers are those of Mr. Vigil’s father, Jose Urbano Vigil. These relate to the years 1900-1914 when Jose Vigil, an influential and popular democrat, held a series of public offices. Previously he had taught school and had been Postmaster at Vigil, Colorado, and a hamlet west of Trinidad in the Purgatoire River Valley. He also had been a Las Animas County Commissioner from 1892-1895. From 1899 through 1905, he was elected County Clerk for three successive terms. In 1908, he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, held in Denver that year, and in 1909, he became State License Inspector for Las Animas County. Jose Vigil served in that post until appointed Postmaster at Trinidad in 1913, two years before pneumonia caused his death.