Lake Scott State Park
Lake Scott State Park is the site of a ruined Taos Pueblo. The Taos arrived in western Kansas in 1664. After having escaped the Spanish colonial rule in New Mexico. They formed an alliance with a group of Plains Apache. The Taos Indians built the protective pueblos and an irrigation system from a nearby spring to water their crops. The settlement, known as El Cuartelejo, was occupied for 20 years before the builders returned to their home territory. The pueblo was reoccupied in 1696 by a group of Picuri Indians. The Picuris were compelled to retreat to their homelands in colonial New Mexico ten years later.
Instituto Nacional de Colonización
The Instituto's main goal was to increase agricultural production in Spain by devoting more land surface to agriculture. Priority was given to the development of new irrigated areas in arid and semi-arid zones. This goal was very effective for the propaganda purposes of the new regime and triumphalistic claims were made that the colonization measures would increase self-sufficiency. But often irrigation was opposed to the traditional and sustainable methods of dryland farming that were ecologically more in tune with locally available resources in fragile environments.